


By Dusk's Return

by RoseGoldAmpersand



Series: At Dawn, By Dusk [2]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: A Peppering of Comic References, Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Angst with a Happy Ending, Avengers Mansion, Communication, Conflict Resolution, Consequences of Time Travel, Eventual Smut, Jarvis (Iron Man movies) Feels, M/M, POV Tony Stark, Pining, Post-Avengers: Endgame (Movie), Post-Canon, Tony Stark Has Issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-16
Updated: 2019-11-23
Packaged: 2021-02-07 07:50:08
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 22,395
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21454561
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RoseGoldAmpersand/pseuds/RoseGoldAmpersand
Summary: Ever since Steve got back from his solo time travel mission he has been avoiding Tony.Tony was trying not to take it personally, but when he learns that Steve travelled back in time to sleep with him and rewrote over their old timeline, he decides it's time for them to talk.
Relationships: Steve Rogers/Tony Stark
Series: At Dawn, By Dusk [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1475768
Comments: 32
Kudos: 347





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I would strongly recommend reading ‘Together, At Dawn’ first as this story explores the consequences of Steve's actions during that fic, alongside speculating what a post-Thanos world might look like for the Avengers.   
  


Ross was speaking - had been speaking for the last three damn hours - when Tony blinked back into the room. 

_ “...and, on behalf of all of America, I think…” _

He promptly tuned back out again.

They were lugging through the homestretch of addendums to the New-Not-Shit-We-Promise-Accords with the end, blissfully, in reach. Tony had organised the meetings himself. The people, the room, the Dominican coffee beans. What he hadn’t accounted for was Ross turning their run over the finalisations into an elongated masturbatory lecture. 

Tony had settled down to nap once the conversation turned to less interesting matters, thinking he should have known better. He wished he had the foresight to bring his cushy meeting pillow with him, as he had made snoozing during board meetings with S.I. something of an art form and it was a real shame to not employ his skills in situations that called for it most.

Plus, he was beginning to get a crick in his neck and the place where his left ass-cheek became thigh was decidedly numb. His cushy meeting pillow wouldn’t have let him achieve this damned fate.

Tony heaved a lacklustre sigh without consciously meaning to. He peered over the top of his turquoise sunglasses to the others to check he hadn’t drawn attention to his flagging resolve. 

Across the table, Thor wore a pair of blackout shades, although they had listed to the tip of his nose and did nothing to hide his shut eyes. Between himself and Tony were his elevated feet and he was heavily leaning his woollen body on the back two legs of his chair. His head was lolled to the side and the tangle of days-old braids in his beard glistened under the artificial light as drool escaped his slack mouth. 

Tony’s mouth twitched with amusement. 

He cast his gaze to Thor’s side to the other representative of outer-space-and-all-that-lies-beyond: Captain Danvers. Her eyes were decidedly open, fixed as they were on the nearest pen-pot. She maintained a steady glare, as though the collective assortment of stationery was the cause of her hardship. Tony watched the pot for a full minute, waiting, before huffing out of boredom and deciding that Carol was too chicken to cause a diversion.

The second kingly presence in the room, T’Challa, looked unflappable as always. Unlike Thor, T’Challa had more experience with successfully employing diplomacy to solve his problems and (unlike Tony) he had the tact to not punch Ross in the teeth. Tony scrunched up his nose, most certain that T’Challa’s attention was only bolstering the General on, but the King was working an angle that Tony couldn't see yet. 

He comforted himself with the reminder that Ross was to be overthrown as the Secretary of State by the end of the whole process. That knowledge alone was what convinced Tony to play nice for a little while and soon they would be rid of the bastard. Tony had heard the person filling his shoes was a redhead that had voted against Ross’s continued employment after the blip. Today was just a formality. They could get through one mind-bleaching meeting.

Between T’Challa and Tony, in contrast to his internal bluster, Doctor Strange was serene. Unnaturally so. He didn’t even blink in the two minutes and four seconds that Tony bothered to count.

(Carol had blinked twenty-three times and the pen-pot remained uncombusted).

He wondered if Strange had fucked off to the doughnut-dimension and made a mental note to ask him another time; if there _ was _ a doughnut-dimension he _ had _ to start investing. 

Momentarily, he was tempted to grab a ball-point and jab it between Strange's ribs, just to see what would happen. He considered it for a moment longer and he felt himself relax and the impulse abate. He couldn’t blame Strange if he had spirited away from the room. They all had better and more productive places to be but had all agreed to keep their collective cool while dealing with Ross. Once their rewritten New-Not-Shit-Accords had the go-ahead from the U.S. government via Ross, any further tweaks they added would be checked by someone lower down the ladder and approved as long as they didn’t mess with the fundamentals. 

With great ability comes great accountability, as the song goes.

The rest of the UN would likely take a few more weeks to collectively pour over the documents and sub-papers, but likewise: as long as the bulk was left unchanged, the proposed NNSA's (officially titled the quaint: Negotiated [inter-]National Super-Being Agreement. Tony didn’t come up with it, otherwise it would have been a lot cooler) would be passed into the implementation stage. When that happened, Tony doubted that Ross would last a week more in the role of Secretary of State.

_ “...onto my final point - my place in all of this…” _

_ God_, Tony wanted to blow something up. He glanced consideringly at the pen-pot again but decided the commotion wouldn’t be worth it. He reached for his phone to discreetly text Happy when Steve caught his eyes from across the table beside Danvers. 

Arctic blue held him _ (encompassed _ him, stole the very breath from his weak pithy lungs) and Tony met the look with a sardonic raise of his brow. Golden fist loose, he made a very subtle and not-at-all childish jerk-off motion in the direction of Ross, tongue-in-cheek.

Steve caught hold of a smile before it could crinkle the corners of his eyes the way Tony liked best (crinkles were good. Soft and old, a well-worn book. Crinkles meant he had done something right and Tony was long past pretending to himself that he didn’t want Cap’s approval). Steve quickly covered the lapse with a look of admonishment. 

_ Behave, _ the look said, and the soldier went back to his pen and paper. _ Scritch scritch_. 

Tony blinked. Frowned.

He redirected his attention to a bead of dew slowly rolling down the side of his glass to pool around its base, most likely to leave an unsightly ring mark on the table. The water reflected the light of the artificial beams above them and the large floor-to-ceiling windows to the outside. He wondered if it was cold; if it would taste like the water he was used to.

He sighed again_._

Now that it was on his mind, Tony found that he couldn’t rightly remember the last time Steve had allowed himself to smile at one of his jokes. He knew that sometimes Steve did want to smile at him, but rather chose to keep it locked up away from view. During the past half-year since the defeat of Thanos, Steve rarely smiled with him at all.

Which was fine, Tony quickly told himself. 

He didn’t mind. Well. He only minded it a _ little,_ but that was to be permitted. He minded it his allotted and perfectly budgeted amount.

In all fairness - Tony reasoned, as Ross’ monologue once more faded into the periphery- he and Steve hadn’t spent much time together after the apocalypse that never was. Tony had been busy recovering physically and mentally for weeks after the final attack. Then, (as soon as he could hold a phone) he was pouring money into relief efforts, got the grid back online, reunited families, rebuilt homes. And not just the world’s, but his childhood Manhattan home - now the Avengers Mansion - had been gutted and fully refurbished to house the eclectic taste of the Avengers and Co. 

(There was probably something to say about why he consistently rebranded Stark buildings for Avengers purposes, but Tony had neither the heart nor the patience to speculate.)

Once he was up and about, Tony and the team were so tremendously busy trying to fix everything going on in the world that he barely saw anyone beyond shared meetings and passing over the Mansion threshold. 

Pete and Happy were a constant presence, and Rhodey and Pepper would drop in when they had the time. The house was never empty, but everybody was understandably exhausted and seemed to want to lick their wounds in peace. It was a time for celebration, but Tony knew very well that nothing is ever that simple.

The whole team were disconnected for months.

Bruce had sought him out late one night when Tony had arrived back from a press conference with Beijing media. 

“Just getting in?” Bruce had inquired kindly, voice hollow, looking small no matter his size. Tony didn’t ask why he had been up so late. He ordered in burgers, claiming starvation, and Bruce picked a trashy 80s film that Tony couldn’t even remember the name of. He remembered Bruce’s smile, though, and the warm feeling of his cheeks stretched into a fresh grin.

Not long after, Thor had returned earlier than expected from his trip with the Guardians, armed with an axe and a laugh that trembled. He did not smell strongly of alcohol, but Tony could see his ache for the bottle. He offered Thor a home, a place among the negotiations, a shoulder to cry on, and the best grief counsellor money could buy. 

He asked the god one stormy day why he had left the Guardians and Thor had replied with a long stretch of silence, only the patter of rain on the windows and clash of heavy clouds above filled it. 

Eventually, a large hand clapped Tony's shoulder and he replied, voice hoarse, “They were not my family.” 

The words set off a sympathetic pang in Tony's gut, like swallowing an ice cube whole, and he didn’t press for more. Thor had lost everything around him and his sense of self to boot. It was only natural for him to draw comfort from the safe familiarity of the Avengers. 

They stood, side-by-side, watching the rain and the wind roll in across the Mansion’s gardens and it was a long time before either of them moved again. 

After that, Tony had made a point to invite Thor to his and Bruce’s weekly ‘old movies’ night. The god didn’t always turn up, but Tony didn’t expect him to. That was half the point. No expectations.

The rest of the team, including Steve, slowly made more appearances in communal spaces and the great old house breathed a sigh of relief as it was filled with laughter and petty arguments and Clint’s old socks in the kitchen cabinet. 

They’d broken the ice, cut the tension, and at times things were eerily reminiscent of how life was before everything went to shit. They all had their bad days and busy lives, but they didn’t need time alone to recover anymore. They could patch themselves up together.

So, because they had all been damnably busy - and _because _he had a house full of loud superheroes that were good company when they weren’t stealing his gluten-free bagels - Tony hadn’t consciously noticed that Steve had been hiding smiles from him. And now that he was noticing, he couldn't help but feel keenly aware that Steve had been _avoiding_ him, too. But he wasn’t avoiding everyone or hiding smiles from anybody else. Just him, Tony, specifically. Sometimes he even straight up ran away from Tony like - well, like he'd murdered his best friend. But he hadn't; and he and Barnes were good (not great, but Barnes had his own floor and smiled when Tony made uncomfortable arm jokes), so that wasn't the reason for Cap's absence.

Steve was the type of guy that would tell someone if he had a problem with them. He enthusiastically told Tony thousands of times when he had a problem with him. Instead, as soon as Steve got wind that they might end up alone together, he excused himself and hightailed it out of there as fast as his serum-ed legs could carry him. It was demoralising, to say the least. Tony had thought… Well, he'd thought they had gotten over all that backbreaking baggage between them. Apparently, Steve felt otherwise, just not enough to do something real about it.

While Tony couldn't recall many of the immediate days after Thanos’ defeat, he had thought that (barring Peter, who only left his side to see his Aunt during the evenings) Steve visited his bedside the most often. Tony remembered a steady presence keeping watch in the dark hushed place between sleep and wakefulness, but it was always gone by the time he was roused. Stolen, by the night. It hadn’t occurred to him until now that the guardian might’ve been a figment. 

_ Oh well, _ he thought with a wry sense of resignation, his eyes sliding over to trace the man’s profile. It's not like it would be the first time Cap came to him in a dream in times of need.

On one of his better days, in the second or third week, Steve had definitely visited and informed Tony and Peter that he was leaving to put the Stones back. _ Good riddance, _ Tony had thought through the sinking feeling in his stomach; those Stones were far more trouble than they were worth. 

Ever since waking up he had wanted to talk to Steve, to say that he heard him loud and clear during their time heist together. Whenever Steve had said _ Tony _ instead of _ Stark _ it was his way of telling him that he had forgiven Tony for the mess they made of the Avengers together and the hurt they caused each other. He got that. They didn't talk about it. On some levels, they didn't need to. And it had taken Tony a tick longer to get there, but inevitably, he had forgiveness for Steve too. 

Defeating a grandiose Titan and getting away with the very first time-heist _ ever _ did that to people. 

At the dawn of Steve’s forthcoming departure, Tony had wanted to give it voice: 

_ ‘We’re good, come back to me.' _

But the kid was there, so he didn’t. A flimsy excuse, he knew, but Tony didn’t have a better one to cover the gaping hole of vulnerability in his chest. They owed each other a world of apologies, so many so that it would take a lifetime before they were squared away. Somehow along the way Steve had forgiven him and with every action since, he had tried to atone for his side of the fallout: he trusted him, called him Tony, and carried him off the battlefield when it was all done. At the end of the world, that was enough for Tony. He was glad to have his friend back.

In place of saying all of this, he had said something stupid and uninspired (because he could never find the right words for Steve) and Steve left with opportunity in the past. After sobering, Tony chalked the sentiment up to being loopy on space-grown painkillers. It wasn’t a big deal. Steve returned from his trip looking like he hadn’t left and Tony forgot about his missed attempt at a heart-to-heart. That was, he had forgotten until Steve sat across from him during a boring-ass meeting and hid a smile like being Tony’s friend again was the worst idea in the world. 

Tony hadn’t acknowledged it, but he missed the self-righteous son of a bitch, and _ god, _wasn’t that sad? He was right back where they started a decade ago; pining after a man who sought him out once for a post-victory screw.

Being teammates again after their epic fall-out should’ve been enough, but Tony had never been good at stopping himself short when he wanted something. He missed his old friend and - in the quiet moments when he wasn’t strong enough to lie to himself - he could admit that he missed the man who had held him in an unyielding grip and washed dry come and sweat from his skin like he was honestly something worth taking care of.

He wasn’t that man anymore. Neither was Steve.

Tony's eyes trailed back to the pooling condensation around the base of his glass and he held in another sigh. The whole thing was depressing, but dwelling on the past wasn't usually his thing.

Maybe what Steve needed (as Bruce needed to get out of his head; Thor needed companionship; Tony needed Pete within a thirty-mile radius) was to not be friends with him for a bit. 

They’d forgiven each other, called a truce, defeated the big bad monster… But they had been through a lot of shit and Tony totally got it if he stirred up some painful memories for the super-soldier. It would be selfish for him to try and rush Steve through his recovery process. It didn’t mean he liked it, but he got it. They weren't friends, not right now. Tony could deal with that. No biggie.

A foot jostled him under the table and Tony snapped to attention (afraid for a ridiculous instant that someone had heard his thoughts) to see the other members of his party stand and shake hands with Ross. He plastered on a tight smile, followed the gang out of the room and rubbed his hand on his pants as he went, feeling puerile.

“Thank God that’s over,” Carol muttered, shoulders tense around her ears. Tony liked her: she was self-assured in a way that a lot of people outside their group didn't like _ and _ she had a great taste in music. He couldn’t wait to see her face when Alpha Flight was finished.

“I couldn’t agree more,” Strange replied, lips twisting a little before his fists struck each other and orange light haloed both arms. He nodded to T’Challa and drew a circle in the air. “I will see you tomorrow, your majesty. The rest of you, until next time.” With that, he stepped through a portal into what looked to be the Sanctum library.

“Braggart,” Tony muttered once the portal was closed and sparks danced over his shoes, only half-serious. He kicked the twinkles away. Beside him, Thor snorted his amusement and Tony winked up at him.

Happy met them outside the building's entrance and opened the door to the car for Tony. He ducked his head with an amused snort and bundled in the back with Thor and Steve following him after saying their goodbyes. He poked his head out of the open window, the arm of his shades dangling between his finger and thumb. 

“Hey Cap,” he called, voice playful. Steve looked to him around Thor and Tony wasn’t baiting him, honest. “Tell Fury to answer my messages, yeah? He sure bugged me enough times about it.”

“I’m not his keeper,” Carol replied, crossing her arms though she smiled. “If you want his attention you know where to find him.”

“Yeah, I’m still trying to figure that one out,” he trailed off, waving a hand. He didn’t want to know the truth behind Fury and Carol’s friendship; it was much more entertaining to make stuff up. His current favourite hypothesis was that she helped him get out of a drunken Vegas marriage and they took the road trip of a lifetime together to get back home. “Doesn’t matter, I’ll leave him hangin’ next time. Toodaloo.”

He waggled his fingers at T'Challa and let the window roll-up. He settled down and Thor's thigh squished comfortably against his.

“What was that about?” Steve asked as they set off, the car quiet now Ross’ voice no longer filled the air. 

“Nothing, really. Fury was just on my ass. Probably wants Iron Man airborne again,” he said, shrugging. Steve made a noise of understanding and the rest of the drive passed quickly as Tony absorbed himself in his phone. He heard the pair talking about the upcoming meetings, but all he registered was the bass rumble of their voices in his chest.

Stepping down from active fieldwork had been an easy choice after he was back on his feet. Tony was glad that he had come to the conclusion on his own that he was (for now) better off as a behind the scenes guy: a consultant and benefactor, as planned from the beginning all those years ago. He took a roundabout way to get there, but he'd chosen it for himself this time. Thanos was dead by his and Thor's collective hand, depending on the way one squinted at the mess they made of the timeline. The point still stood regardless: Thanos was gone and Tony had earned a little holiday time.

He supported the team financially and legally. He gave them shelter, tech and knowledge. If it came down to it (if another Killian, Ultron, or Thanos picked a fight) Iron Man would step up, but the most exciting thing that happened in the past month was a car-sized slug sliming the streets of The Bronx.

_ Yeah, no thanks. _Tony had been happy to sit that one out. Call him when it was at least a seven on the scale of _ 'how fucked are we?'_. The slug was barely a two.

Shortly after, he announced it to the team personally. He couldn't bear the thought of explaining himself to them all individually, so he sent an unscripted holo-message in a mass email - _ after _ Rhodey pointed out he had a habit of drawing a target on his back in front of the world news, as had been his original plan. He compromised.

He told Pete in person, partially because the kid never checked his damn emails, but also because Tony knew he was ready to be an Avenger - for realsies this time. Pete deserved to hear it in person how proud Tony was of him, so he said it out loud and clear. Past the rambling and the awkward way he patted the kid on the head like a five-year-old, Tony thought he’d done all right. Better than Howard, which was all he could hope for.

Presently, he, Thor, and Steve arrived back at the Mansion while the sun was still up. Golden light poured across the lawn and cast a healthy honey glow over their drawn faces. The house was quiet when they entered, but not silent, and that was what mattered.

“I am going to turn in for the evening; rouse me if there is a supper to be had,” Thor said, squeezing Tony’s bony elbow and patting Steve on a broad bicep as he turned off in the direction of the elevators. Thor had always been touchy and Tony was glad he hadn't lost that along with everything else. Sometimes he didn’t realise until Thor drew him into his side how touch-starved he had gotten the past few months.

“Let FRI know if you need anything,” he reminded. Thor had been living with them for a while now, but it wouldn’t hurt to remind him that there were always people around for company. Human or otherwise.

“I’d best be going too,” Steve said contritely and Tony consciously stopped himself from feeling offended. He wasn't sure why it had taken him so long to notice that Steve was avoiding him; he could suddenly see it plain as day. 

Sure, they'd all been busy, but maybe Tony had been willfully ignoring the new distance between them as an act of self-defence. An outright rejection would have hurt too much. That same reason had stopped Tony from seeking out Steve’s company after Thanos; too skittish to risk their unspoken truce crumbling down around them. Even before then, during the five-year gap of hell, he hadn't reached out. He exiled himself to a cabin by a lake in the woods and avoided everybody.

Was that what Steve was doing now - giving him space as he had done after the snap? It sounded like something he would do, but he must know that Tony harboured no ill will for him, not anymore.

Maybe the distance between them was Tony’s fault. What if he had said what he had meant to say the day Steve left for the past, _ 'we’re good, come back to me’? _ Would that have fixed things, or pushed them even further apart? 

It was too late to change the past. He had to look forward.

Tony fiddled with the nonexistent dirt under his matte metal nails. A glutton for punishment, he offered, “That’s cool. Only... I have some plans in my workshop for Alpha Flight I thought you might want to see. I could use your artist's eye for some of the aesthetics, I’m terrible at interior design. No pressure or anything. I’m just saying the offer is there. If you want.” 

He felt short of breath.

The line of Steve’s mouth hardened, but his eyes were warm. _ Mixed signals. _“I would like to Tony - really, thank you - but I need to meet Buck at the tarmac tonight and I have a few things I’d like to take care of beforehand. Send them to my StarkPad and I’ll take a look?”

Barnes. Of course. 

Oddly, Tony probably had more alone time with Barnes than he had with Steve since the final battle. Employing the same approach he had used with Bruce seemed to do the trick: don’t be afraid of the dude that happens to _ sometimes _be a big scary rage monster and said rage monster won’t be afraid of him. 

He had offered Barnes a home at the Mansion, but the sergeant had left for Wakanda. He claimed that it was his happy place and Tony couldn't blame him. With all that tech, Wakanda was his happy place too. Barnes returned to the Mansion once a month to visit Steve and even joined the team on the occasional renegade roundup. Tony made a habit of talking to the guy at least once per visit. Sometimes it was a few one-liners in passing, but now and then they'd have a session with B.A.R.F. or compared arms. Consequently, Tony began to get to know the man as a person - not a sepia stained sidekick, not a whispered legend, not a cold murderer, but just Barnes. 

He made sure his room was regularly cleaned without bleach and he kept a full stock of candy bars. The White Wolf had a sweet tooth, who knew?

As Barnes was an acquaintance now and Tony didn't want to rock the boat, he nodded at Steve.

"Sure," he said and did not for a second let his disappointment colour his tone. “Another time.”

He smiled behind his shades and had the feeling that Steve was letting him down easy. 


	2. Chapter 2

Tony watched Steve follow Thor to the basement levels and tried not to think about Barnes as he made his way up to his R&D workshop. 

The original plan for the Mansion had been to reserve the three floors of the building to the team’s living spaces and public appearances, while the many basement levels would secret away sensitive data and storage. As luck would have it, it turned out that they had a lot more Avengers than physical data. 

The top floor had been renovated into a hangar (for Carol, the Guardians, and anybody else with a quinjet and clearance); the second floor was Tony’s; the ground floor was communal. The many basement levels were for the team, topped with artificial windows, private kitchens, fully outfitted gym, the works. The very last level - which was almost a whole block wide underground - was where Tony kept everything they’d salvaged from their last Headquarters and storage facilities, along with a few extra projects of his own.

More often than not Tony could be found among his bots designing new tech for the team. Not in an: _ ‘oh fuck, something awful is coming’ _-way, but he was an engineer, mechanic, inventor first and foremost. Making things was what he did. It was nice to go back to his roots.

He designed, coded, manufactured, fitted _ and _ upgraded his new arm by the end of the second-month post-Thanos (the kid called it _ 'the blip' _ and Tony had outright refused on principle to call it something so infinitesimal, until he used it ironically and it stuck). 

The design was based on schematics for a certain super-soldier but had been abandoned halfway through. He’d flipped the orientation, trimmed the bulk, and produced it in a smooth, brushed matte titanium-gold alloy (the flesh tone had felt too fake and plain steel too close to nightmares, but gold was ostentatious and suited him well. He made it an accessory so he couldn’t think of it as a hindrance: he couldn’t miss his original arm when this one was so freaking _ cool_). It was both flashy _ and _ understated - for him, anyway. 

It ran dexterity, tension, strength, heat, pressure, all seamlessly. As a precaution, the back of the forearm hid a photon-shield; his palm a contained repulsor, and he had an option to stun anytime he sent a finger gun someone’s way. Occasionally he would tinker with his new arm, testing to see if he could make it more sensitive, more dexterous, _ more, _ but rather than starting in on the arm, Tony opened up his ongoing pet project of reinstating J.A.R.V.I.S’ old data files with F.R.I.D.A.Y’s. 

When he had set FRIDAY up she was a baby, shiny and new, with access to all the technical data of the time, but lacking when it came to all the learned knowledge that JARVIS had collected and written protocols for over the years. Finding the files that had been destroyed when JARVIS (and later, Vision) was killed wouldn’t necessarily bring JARVIS back, but for FRIDAY it would be like finding her deceased dojo master’s diary and learning his old secrets. Right now she was a brilliant A.I., but she didn’t know the team - or Tony - as JARVIS had. Finding some of those files would jump-start the process.

He had started the assimilation during his self-imposed banishment at the lake house, but then the time-heist happened and that was that. The end goal would be to have both JARVIS and FRIDAY’s data streams running in tandem throughout the Mansion. There was a lot more code to write, but it was possible. 

Tony cradled a cup of coffee to his lips and got to work.

* * *

Four more black coffees later - three of which were decaf, thank you kindly - Tony’s eyes were feeling dry and scratchy. He ran his fingers over his beard thoughtfully and waited for FRIDAY to finish actioning the latest reprogramming updates.

The screen before him fizzled, as though FRIDAY was blinking away a spell of dizziness. 

“Not glitching on me, are you hon?” He murmured, running his tongue along the back of his teeth as he monitored the progress, text and numbers flying by in real-time as FRIDAY loaded and processed the new wealth of information. 

_ “My systems have updated successfully, Boss. I have access to footage JARVIS stored.” _

“Huh, that's a start. No access to subsequent observations or protocols, I see,” he hummed. The news was promising and meant JARVIS hadn’t been completely lost; the cells were alive.

_ “Not yet, but there’s… There’s something wrong. I can’t-” _ She was unnaturally quiet for a moment and if Tony hadn’t literally been watching her brain work, he might've thought she had shut down. Two new windows opened up before him, large and imposing. _ “Look.” _

“This is,” Tony pushed his glasses further up his nose and squinted at the date in the corner of both screens. It seemed to be two screens of security footage of himself in the Tower from the same camera. “Hm... This is after the Chitauri attack," he snorted, then amended: "The first attack. What’s wrong with it?”

FRIDAY pressed play for him and both cameras followed the on-screen Tony in his old workshop as he made post-battle repairs to the Iron Man suit. 

_ Mark VII looked so clunky,_ he thought and shared a small smile with the nearest suit. In both screens, the cameras follow him as he bobbed his head and tapped his foot while he worked. He was about to ask what the problem was when one Tony - only one - paused his tapping and turned around to greet someone. The seconds counter kept climbing on both screens, identical to the millisecond, but the other Tony didn’t once look up from his work.

“Show me again,” he instructed, leaning in to watch frame-by-frame as the two Tony’s stopped their synchronized movements to divide their attention in two opposite directions. Once more, one Tony continued to work while the other was distracted and pulled away.

“Again,” he said, “You’re certain these aren’t just two different, but weirdly coincidental, days?”

He knew it was a stupid question; he could see for himself that the footage was of the same day and same time. The shadows across the floor hung the same. The grease marks behind his left ear were the same. His clothes, the armour, the food wrappers beneath the desk. His silly hip-wiggle: it was all the same.

_ “We would need the rest of JARVIS’ data to confirm, but based on my assessments - and with less than a point-zero-five margin of error - this is footage of the same moment in time,” _FRIDAY replied, gentle Irish notes cautious.

He let the footage play the whole way through this time. He watched Steve enter the workshop and leave sometime later, just as Tony remembered. His past self returned to gather the Mark VII from the floor, a pep in his step, while his other self of the second footage slept hunched over the armour, exhausted and alone.

“Is this the only instance?”

A pause.

_ “No, JARVIS has several duplicate records of the day of the Chitauri attack: the original timeline and the edit - the missions to retrieve and replace the stones. This is to be expected. Everything before and after this hasn’t been… Tampered with. Other than this instance in the workshop.” _

“Great. Okay,” Tony muttered, staring at his sleeping form with some relief. If there had been more occasions, who knew if he would be able to fix it. At least this was contained. One instance of unplanned and unknown time-fuckery was much easier to confront.

Discovering the duplicate footage in JARVIS's banks of the day they had infiltrated the Tower was not surprising. Rather than recording over what had already happened, JARVIS must have recorded both events simultaneously, even as time was being rewritten. Honestly, Tony had no idea that JARVIS had been able to transcend the time-continuum like that. He gave himself a mental pat on the back. 

But it didn't explain how the footage of himself, asleep and alone in the workshop, came to be. They had put the Stones back, so it couldn’t be footage from an off-shoot universe leaking into theirs either; the Stones were where they needed to be. It wasn’t possible for a duplicate reality to exist in tandem when they were anchored.

Unless... Steve hadn’t put all the Stones back.

Tony dismissed the thought as soon as it crossed his mind. Obviously, Steve had put the Stones back. He wasn’t a complete crackpot. Although, Steve was a bit of a nut at times and he sure had a lot of regrets on those broad shoulders of his... Had Steve taken the opportunity to stop his past-self from sleeping with Tony when he went back to return to Stones? 

Tony swallowed past a lump and forced himself to continue along that train of thought.

As far as Tony could tell, the man had never thought about their little tryst again - he had never even hinted at it in the years-post. Tony had been under the impression that it had been a meaningless one-time fling for Cap, something nice and not to be repeated, but perhaps Steve had remembered it enough to know he wanted to undo it.

Except the change hadn’t stuck; Tony could remember perfectly - albeit with the fogginess of a decade behind him - that they had definitely, thoroughly, fucked. (Watching the tape back he cringed; he’d been so damn eager to impress. His voice was hoarse for days after that particular trick.) Moreover, if Steve had tried to stop them from fucking in an attempt to stop their fight before Thanos, it hadn’t worked. Ultron still happened; the Accords; Thanos - it had all happened the same in either timeline according to JARVIS. Otherwise, he would have a record of it, just like this.

It didn’t add up. Time had been rewritten without logic. Only three or so hours of it, but their past had undoubtedly been changed.

Maybe that was why Steve had been so awkward during the past few months; maybe he knew somehow that Tony still remembered - knew that his plan to steal the memory from him hadn’t worked. _ Was _ that the plan? Return the Stones and take the opportunity to prevent his past-self from sleeping with Tony? Change the course of their friendship, and fall-out, and make Tony forget they ever slept together?

But why? Why did it not work? There was no reason for Tony to not have a memory of the new timeline. Surely, as far as he was aware, nothing had changed for him. Whatever Cap had changed had always been _ his _ reality, because he would have only ever experienced the edited timeline.

_ “Oh shit,” _ Tony said and fell into a seat.

_ “Boss!” _ FRIDAY called, but Tony barely heard her over the pounding in his ears and the breath rushing in his lungs. He shut the screen off, then closed his eyes for good measure.

Tony didn’t have the memory of being alone in his workshop, because that wasn’t what had happened in the timeline he lived. 

He remembered being with Steve. 

In this timeline, he had always been with Steve.

And that meant… That meant Steve took time out of replacing the Stones to fuck him. The past him. And Steve of the past - the Steve that Tony had been friends with, had fought with - had had no idea about it. Steve had effectively only changed _ Tony’s _ timeline, not even the past-Steve had known they fucked in 2012.

“What the fuck?” he gasped, burrowing his face in his hands as the shock began to leak from his system and realisation settled in. “Okay. Okay, okay, okay…”

He just about jumped out of his skin when a steady hand touched his shoulder. “Hey, Tony-”

“Jesus, kid. Warn a guy!” He chided, smacking Peter’s hand away a little more firmly than he had meant to. He looked up at him with wild eyes, forcing himself not to panic. “What’re you doing here?”

“You said to come over!” Peter accused, literally pointing the finger. “We were going to strength test the arm! FRI said you were upset, I figured it might be the arm o-or you said you had that crappy meeting planned today and honestly I would be pretty stres-”

“The meeting was fine,” Tony dismissed and kicked out the chair beside him with a screech so Peter could sit. “The arm is fine.”

“Oh," Peter sat, the fight seeping out of him. He turned earnest brown eyes to Tony and took a seat. “Then what’s up?”

“It’s not- I’m not,” Tony frowned as the words tumbled from the back of his throat. He screwed up a piece of paper just so he could squash something in his hands as he tried to form a coherent sentence. He couldn’t exactly tell the kid he was sour because he just worked out that Steve was avoiding him after travelling back in time for a post-battle booty call. Tony wouldn’t shut Peter out, though; he deserved more than that. Tony would be the first to admit he was a crap father figure, but at least - unlike Howard - he would be there. In the end, he settled on a pathetic, “I’m having boy troubles.”

“Ohhh,” Peter replied, nodding knowingly and the tension eased in Tony’s gut. He was such a good kid. “Tell me about it? Maybe I can help. I’m a boy. Man.”

Tony couldn’t help the fond snort that escaped him, despite his out-of-sorts mood. He dropped his paper ball to the table and breathed out, long and shallow.

“When Cap went to twenty-twelve to put the Stones back he changed something in the timeline,” he said and Peter’s eyes widened. “JARVIS had- It doesn’t matter. Steve changed something between us, and since he got back he’s been-” _ Avoiding me,_ he didn’t say. “-I just thought, after the battle, that maybe,- but... God forbid anything ever be easy with him.”

“You seem pretty mad at him,” Peter observed, voice tense as though he was ready to go one on one with Captain America on Tony’s behalf. Again. “Did he do something bad?”

_ Yes. _ “No,” Tony bit out, frustrated. He chewed the side of his thumb. He thought of the footage of his past self (his original-self?) hunched over his worktable, isolated and fearful. _ He _ remembered having a pleasant early-morning nap, still high with post-orgasmic thrills and aching in all the right places. Objectively, Cap had made that day much better. He did not massively change the course of history either, so Tony couldn’t complain when _ he _had fucked up getting the Tesseract when it was a matter of life or death. 

How often had he recalled the memory of the way Steve had felt inside, against his lips, while the Steve he knew had no knowledge of it. He had felt so betrayed when Steve chose not to trust him with Ultron, despite what they had shared (it had mattered to Tony, damn it, even when he told himself it meant nothing real) - _ God, _ had he overreacted? Compromised as he was by his one-sided memory of their time together? 

Past-Steve had never slept with him, had never known they'd fucked. 

_ I must've looked mad to him, _ Tony thought. 

And yet, that man still chose to fuck Tony's past-self, even after everything that happened between them.

_ Shit. _He was spiralling.

“Tony?”

He clung to Peter’s steady voice, a branch at the edge of the waterfall. 

“I need to know why. Why he did it,” Tony said, voice determined as he found Peter’s gaze. That was still the unanswered question; _ why. _“He owes me an explanation.”

“Well. What do you want to do? Good cop, bad cop?” Peter joked.

“That wasn’t half a bad idea,” Tony muttered. He was running on coffee, a traumatic realisation, and an excruciatingly dull meeting. Now was not the time for good, sensible, ideas. “You should convince him to confess. Don’t say we know, just _ heavily imply _ that we know. All, _ ‘golly gee Mister America, it sure would suck if anyone used Mister Stark’s time-travel machine to randomly change the past, who knows what the ramifications could be!’ _”

Peter kicked at him. Missed. “You’re the worst,” he said with a laugh.

“You’re an Avenger now!” Tony urged. If Spidey was on the case, he wouldn’t have to think about any of it. He would just have to wait for Steve to crumble from guilt and come find him. A perfectly adult solution to a sticky situation. “Mostly. In all the ways that count. It’ll be good for you to get some practice in.”

“Yeah, yeah, okay.” Peter interrupted, his mouth twitching at the corners as he rolled his eyes. “But you owe me a trip to the Smithsonian and two-” He held up two fingers imploringly. “_ -two _ nicknacks from the gift shop.”

“And that is why you’ll take over as head of R&D before you hit twenty-five,” Tony smirked and threw his paper ball at him. Peter caught the projectile mid-arc with a web and drew it into his hand. Cheater. "Now run along and interrogate Captain America for Avengers-classified information, _ dear_. We can do the strength test another time.” 

He needed a break. Maybe a trip to Hawaii. The weather would be nice. He deserved nice weather.

Tony shut his eyes and rubbed at the space between his brows. A pair of strong arms wrapped around him and he sighed, leaning into the touch.

_ Was it fair that Pete was taller than him now? _

_ No, _ he decided and patted Peter’s shoulder, it definitely wasn’t.

“It’ll be alright, Tony. You know… Whatever happens, I’ll always be here to steal your bagels from the fridge,” Peter reassured, so earnestly that Tony almost missed what he said.

He shot him a sharp look as the kid untangled himself and danced backwards, grinning like a hooligan as he ran to the door. 

“You’re a menace, Parker!” He called after him, Peter’s following laugh unavoidably making him chuckle too. Tony smiled for a good long while after that, even as the shadow of the past loomed overhead.

_ …What the fuck was Steve thinking?_


	3. Chapter 3

“No,” Bruce said, voice strained with frustration as he glared at Tony across the kitchen table. “What I’m saying is, you can’t have _ both _ sprinkles and nuts, regardless of the ice cream flavour. I’m not anti-sprinkle, but use your head for once, Tony.”

“It’s not that deep,” Tony dismissed, waving his spoon at the other man. “It’s almond ice-cream, I’m allowed to have more nuts, it’s the same thing. Let me enjoy this.”

He felt someone come up behind him and looked up to find Clint peering over his shoulder. “Ugh,” the archer said. Tony frowned at him rudely.

“See! It’s not just me that thinks you’re crazy," crowed Bruce.

“Honestly, I’m disappointed in both of you. It's 10 am,” Clint replied, turning his nose up at the equally sugary bowl Bruce held defensively close. Clint bit into a spoonful of marshmallows, littering splashes over the tiled floor. With a mug of cereal and coffee, Tony wasn’t sure Clint had a leg to stand on.

“Careful,” Tony warned, shielding his spiced tea as the man kicked his converse up onto the table. 

The thud and clatter of crockery faded, only to be echoed by a clap of thunder outside. No rain.

Bruce was up, transforming and charging out of the room before Tony could stand.

If Thor was calling a storm on the property, it was likely to be at least an eight. Tony had his hard-light shield up as he followed after the Hulk, Mark LXXXVIII materialising seamlessly to accommodate his metal arm as he rushed through the splintered and buckled doors - _ Thanks Bruce, I'll bill ya._

There was no lightning as he stepped foot into the courtyard, but petrichor and gunpowder assaulted his nostrils and the air was thick with static humidity. No roars from Professor Hulk, which didn't mean much, but no smashing either. 

Tony rounded the corner, back to the wall and held the shield out in front of him. Across the cobblestones and grass, he caught sight of a second hard-light shield as Steve hid in the shadows in plainclothes. Ducking under Cap's defence was Pete (sans suit); and perched high up to his left at an open window was Barton, somehow now shirtless - _ that man was a disaster _ \- but he had his bow and an arrow ready and that was what counted. On the far side of the yard, Barnes mirrored the archer with his rifle. 

In the centre of the garden, obscured slightly by the topiary and the green of Bruce’s shoulder, was Thor in his fading pyjamas and a long cardigan. A few feet ahead of the pair was a glowing blue light, long and rounded but humanoid in shape. It dimmed, growing opaque and multi-coloured as the available Avengers looked on and waited for their cue.

"Thor-" Cap started, gripping his shield tighter and readying a fighting stance.

Bruce held up a large hand to silence him and Thor did not react at all - did not even seem to be aware of the dark clouds looming overhead. He was panting as the sky rolled anxiously above. His gaze was transfixed, almost in anticipation. If Thor knew what they were about to face then it could go one of two ways: well, because they had the advantage of knowledge, or horribly because Thor had fought a lot of overpowered aliens in his millennium-long existence and that was before he craved the comfort of a bottle in each hand.

As the light materialised into a figure, Tony understood why the man looked so stricken.

"Bro-th-er," said the spectre, the voice unnaturally distant as though it were speaking through a wall of water. The light pulsed around the figure and Loki grew vivid, solid, as they watched him reach out to Thor.

Tony readied his repulsor. Thor and Bruce had told them all about Loki's change of heart during Ragnarok and the reclamation of his family name - _ Odinson _ \- just moments before his death, but that didn't mean that the Avenger's had forgotten about the vengeful god that sent hell to New York in 2012. 

As Loki grew corporeal he looked far from the threat he once used to. He was a pale blue all over, sickly, and if not for Thor rushing forward he might've fallen to the ground. Instead, he fell into his brother's arms, who had jerked out of his stupor and rushed forward to haul his spindly form upright. 

"Brother," Thor said, his voice choked and Tony knew there were tears in his eyes. His chubby hands held Loki's gaunt aquamarine face, thumbs erratically stroking the line of his cheeks, then through his limp black hair as he begged, "Brother, I'd say this was your most cruel trick, but were you truly alive to play it I would care not."

"It's me, brother," Loki replied and his red eyes were wet. Even past the blue tone, he looked exhausted, almost sick with it, and too weak to hold back the tears. "I promised you- I promised you the sun."

"So you did. You came back," Thor laughed, disbelief turning the sound brittle as he clutched at his brother's shoulders in a strong grip lest the trickster disappeared again. “You’re back.”

"I was never far away, brother," said Loki as Thor settled their foreheads together, so quiet that without the suit Tony would not have known what was said. 

Suddenly, it all felt far too intimate a scene for the team to be looking in on. He dropped his arm as the pair fiercely embraced, clutching at each other and sobbing bittersweet relief and six years worth of heartache into each other's shoulders. Later. They would find out what the hell had happened to Loki later but for right now the two needed time to reunite on their own terms. Tony had seen enough family's back together after Bruce's snap to know when the time was to look away.

There was a pause and a mutual shuffle as everyone decided to follow his lead and stand down. He maturely held his tongue and did not make a James Cameron joke (he'd save it for the kid). Instead, Tony let out a breath, his racing pulse beginning to slow, and he commanded the suit to flow back into his body - settling at home in his bones until next time.

The team began to retreat; first Barnes, then Barton and Pete followed. Tony looked across the clearing and caught Steve's eye, the other man's expression a mixture of grim remorse, and Tony wondered what story his own features told. 

He hadn't spoken to Steve once in the days since he found out about Cap's little detour in the past. He had been purposefully avoiding Steve; there was no point denying it. He just wasn't ready to face up to the music - to shine the spotlight on all of their mistakes and failings. And honestly, he was still trying to process the mind-fuck that was Cap going back in time to sleep with his past-self. 

He met Steve's gaze across the yard and felt distinctly _ seen. _Briefly, he wondered if the other man knew that he had figured it out and Tony wished, just for a moment, that Steve did know - that they could leave it all unspoken and move on, go back to being friends like before everything became so much more complicated. But it was immature idealism and the gulf between them would grow to breakpoint if they maintained this silent purgatory.

Tony looked into Steve's azure eyes and saw loss and then he couldn't bear to look any longer. 

Bruce was transforming again as Tony turned away, olive-skinned and approaching the reunited pair quietly. _ Good, _Tony thought, not without some relief; if any one of them was most equipped to deal with the Odinson family drama, it was Bruce.

It began to rain as Tony made his way back to the workshop - streams and fat droplets poured down the windows he passed, already overflowing from the gutter above. The noise surrounded him as he walked, cushioning his steps through the empty hall.

He wondered if the deluge belonged to Thor having finally found closure - a phenomenal release of the god's pain and relief - or it was merely a sympathetic coincidence of nature.

* * *

Tony’s fingers tapped idly at his elbows as he watched over the duplicate footage JARVIS saved again. He frowned as his past self collapsed, allowing Loki the opportunity to collect the Tesseract from the floor of the Tower while everybody was distracted, before retreating into a portal at his back. There had been fifteen minutes of chaos as their original selves looked for Loki - including Thor yelling to the heavens and Steve getting into a spectacular fight with his future self - and then, innocent as anything, the god of mischief reappeared in chains before Thor as if nothing had happened. The Tesseract was handed over to Pierce, and all was right in the world again; the Stone returned to its place in the hands of a Nazi. 

Tony paused the screen and squinted behind his glasses to compare the still images of the Loki that had deserted them to the one that returned (and had consequently been taken back to Asgard). They weren’t the same person. Undeniably, it was Loki, but in that fifteen minutes of abandoning the original flow of the timestream, something had happened to change him. The hair wasn’t right, nor his demeanour: the original Loki had been sassing Thor and the other Avengers ever since he had been put in chains, while this one was moody and quiet. Wherever he went, it hadn't been good.

Had the Stone somehow convinced Loki back from wherever he had gone to reclaim it’s lost place in their universe and prevent inevitable paradox? Was a semi-sentient Stone even a _ thing? _ He would have to ask Strange, but Tony really couldn’t face that man’s smug smile right now.

In all honesty, Tony was only concerning himself with trawling through the duplicate footage (just a precaution; it wouldn’t do to risk the return of the mad Titan because of a stupid mistake during _ operation: Time Heist) _ because he didn’t want to be without distraction. Without that, his thoughts would inevitably turn to Steve.

With a grunt, Tony silenced the footage and let his eyes wash over the images before him. The third Captain America - _ and hey, wasn’t that a nice thought? _ \- returned the Mind Stone to his unconscious counterpart, moments after the second Steve left to find Tony and Lang outside. The third Cap hesitated, as the second had, and looked down at the unconscious form of his younger self for a few moments with a sombre expression laced into a line between his brows. Tony recognised it as the same look Steve had had on his face earlier when their eyes had caught across the courtyard. 

Steve v.3.0 soon shook himself out of it and stealthily made his way out of the Tower, likely to return the Time Stone to the Sanctum, and the original Steve woke, clearly in a daze. He spotted Loki’s sceptre, spoke into his comms link and the STRIKE team were there in seconds to secure the Stone.

(Tony couldn’t help but agree with Scott’s assessment in retrospect: they had _ ‘bad guys’ _ written all over them.

He didn't feel too bad; Fury had missed it, too.)

Tony wondered at which point Steve decided to leave the mission parameters and play around in the past. Was it then, looking at the slumped form of his younger self and thinking about ‘missed opportunities’? Or was it later, after they’d successfully ferried Loki and Thor to the jump point and his younger self rode off into the sunset straddling a bike?

It didn’t matter, Tony realised as he rubbed a hand over his face, smudging the underside of his glasses before pushing them back to the top of his head out of the way. It didn’t matter when or why, because he knew had already forgiven Steve. 

The image of his original self, terrified after the battle and with only his bots and his suits for company, was an image he was glad no longer existed in his lived memory. Steve - knowingly or not - had offered the comfort that his past self had sorely needed and Tony couldn’t find any more bitterness in his old tin heart for the other man. That comfort hadn’t changed the course of history; Siberia still happened, and maybe even hurt worse for it in the long run, but deep down Tony did not feel any true resentment. They’d been there, done that, burned the t-shirt. 

As Tony watched the original team - new and naive to the universe in a way none of them had thought possible - he felt wistful and nostalgic. 

“The good old days,” muttered Tony and he snorted at his sentimentality. He took a sip of cold coffee and grimaced before swallowing the rest of the cup in one gulp.

They were getting back to that; a team that was closer to _ family _ than it was to _ colleagues _ and Tony didn’t want to jeopardize the camaraderie with another messy breakup between himself and Cap. The team came first. And now that they had Thor and Bruce back the high-school drama would just be embarrassing, to say the least. He was glad they had missed it the first time.

Cap’s little indiscretion in the past? Forgiven (mostly). 

But, ever since coming back from the past, Steve had been risking the team harmony by avoiding Tony and keeping _ yet another _ deep dark secret about Tony’s past quietly to himself.

_ We can’t go on together, with suspicious minds, _ Tony’s brain helpfully supplied - and wasn’t that peachy? Now he had Elvis stuck in his head, on top of all of this bullshit time-fuckery and a strange blue Loki living under his roof. Tony would ask how his life had gotten to this point, but the answer was in full technicolour right in front of his very eyes.

It was times like these that Tony wished Jarvis was with him. Man or A.I., he wasn’t picky. Jarvis always knew how to help him.

_ “Mister Parker is here, sir,” _ FRIDAY interrupted and Tony blinked away the cobwebs to see the kid step through the doorway. 

“How’s our newest resident god doing?” he asked and subtly drew his glasses back down to the bridge of his nose so he could check the time. _ 7 pm - ugh _.

“Dunno,” Peter replied with a casual shrug and placed down two steaming bowls of mac and cheese. It wasn’t the box kind - and not fancy enough to be Wilson’s - so Peter must have gone to the effort to make it himself.

“You… Don’t know. There’s a semi-stable God of _ mischief _ in the house and you just ‘don’t know’ what’s up with him?” Tony drawled, accepting a fork and a can of soda.

“Hey, it’s your house! Why’re you askin’ me?” he laughed, already on his fifth mouthful of pasta. He pointed the gloopy curvature of his spoon at the sixteen or so screens of footage surrounding Tony. “I’m sure Thor’s handling it. What’ve you been doing down here? Checking for plot-holes?”

“Yes,” Tony replied, not surprised that Peter was clever enough to accurately glean his intentions. “I haven’t found any more loose ends that we weren’t already aware of, but I only have the footage of the Tower. If Nebula found anything, she would have said. I suppose I could look through Shield records, too, but as far as we can tell everything went back the way it had originally been. Other than Loki - which might have corrected itself, _ here _-” he pointed his fork to the respective image of Loki leaving the Tower in chains, “- and Steve, who at least had the sense to keep his wanderlust contained; he only interacted with me.” He stuffed his mouth with a forkful, blowing out the steam carefully, then stabbed at another bite, delaying. He had to ask - there was no avoiding it. “Have you done what I asked? It‘s been three days: the next bad guy in tights might’ve already caused mass destruction by now.”

“Yeah, about that…”

_ Oh no, kid, that’s not what I want to hear. _

“What did you do now?” Tony asked, half-joking as a sliver of nervousness pierced into his throat.

“It’s totally not my fault! I was going to speak to him, I really was, but Sergeant Barnes was right there and he said he wanted to fight me before he goes back to Wakanda and I really, really, wanted to! And he taught me that cool trick where he catches a knife in mid-air - not that I’d ever use a knife like that - but he said I reminded him of Captain Rogers before he got all big and you can’t expect me to say _ no _to that, Tony! If anything, I did you a favour.”

Tony reeled, his metal hand flying up incredulously to stop the younger man before he dug himself a bigger hole. “How’d you work that one out?”

Peter shrugged, sheepish. “I bought you some time so you could decide how you feel. And when Captain Rogers left I may have hinted that you sent me to spy and Mr Barnes said _ ‘good, Stevie’s been mooning over him for as long as I can remember’_, which I think was sort of a joke because you know his memories are still a bit- but I didn’t want to say anything. Still, it means you don’t have to worry about him not liking you back?”

“_'__Liking me back’,_” Tony repeated with a breathless laugh. 

He wondered if it could honestly be that simple: two guys that liked each other, despite the history between them. Was that a workable basis for a relationship (or, at the very least, a real amicable truce)? It wouldn’t be the first time Tony built something from scraps. 

A voice that sounded suspiciously like Rhodey’s told him to man up and talk it out with Steve. He had to agree, all this hesitating was just prolonging the inevitable. 

Tony had never been the type to hide: when he saw a problem he found a solution. He infiltrated a terrorists’ headquarters without a working suit or official training; he built Pete an A.I. of his very own, to keep him safe because he was never going to stop being Spider-Man; he built E.D.I.T.H., understanding that maybe one day all the Avengers and all the Kings’ men wouldn’t be enough to stop the apocalypse.

Got issues? Iron Man stood up and did something about it.

He would do something about this.

Tony met Peter’s gaze and nodded as resolutely as he could muster, “I’ll talk to him.”

  
  



	4. Chapter 4

After Pete left later on that evening, Tony returned to trawling through JARVIS’ code with FRIDAY in an attempt to ignore the plucky resolve clawing its way across his ribcage. He lasted exactly four minutes before his attention was solely focused on the more immediate issue at hand.

He checked the time. 1 am. Far from an unsociable hour.

Thor was with Loki which probably wasn't the best idea considering the history of rivalry between them, but Bruce was along keeping watch. Although, the three of them _ had _ brought about the destruction of Asgard and marooned the entire population on a mad dictator’s orgy ship that was almost immediately boarded by a mad Titan.

Parker had left to see Barton and Barnes, which may have been an even worse trio to allow to be together. Tony had the sneaking suspicion that of the three, Barnes was going to be the voice of reason. He definitely couldn't count on Clint's sense of self-preservation.

Tony was sure that if anything came up Sam would handle it.

The rest of the team were likely sleeping or out of the Mansion. It didn't matter. Tony only needed one person for this.

“FRI, where is Captain A?” He stood, grabbing a pair of sunglasses and shoving them onto his nose. He scrunched up said nose then tossed the pair aside, replacing them with his normal spectacles.

_ “Captain Rogers is on his floor.” _

_ Okay, okay. _ “Anybody with him?” He shoved his sleeves up to his elbows and ran a hand roughly through his hair. He winced as a joint caught in a knot.

_ “No, boss.” _

“Perfect, don’t let him leave,” he swept up his warmest cup of caffeine, and jogged to the elevator. 

He inspected himself in the mirrored wall, his hair wild and eyes manic behind thick frames.

He swallowed. The reflected image lost tension in its shoulders. Cap wouldn’t react well if he looked moments away from a panic attack - no, Tony would be calm and cool. _ Steve _ was the one that had fucked around in his past; Tony had a right to demand explanations. If Steve got pissed and defensive then that was his own decision to make and they would have to deal.

Tony technically owned the whole building, but they were going to do this on Steve’s turf, which was about as considerate as Tony was comfortable with. Anywhere else, Steve would feel exposed and fear that the conversation might be overheard. There may be a chance of Tony actually receiving an explanation if Cap was somewhat at ease.

Tony had the arm and the hard-light shield. (He wouldn’t need it. He _ wouldn’t need it.) _

He tapped his gold fingers impatiently along the walls of his coffee cup, the rhythmic dull thuds filling the almost oppressive silence of the ride down to Steve’s floor. JARVIS would have talked to him at this moment. Advised him against such a rash course of action. Would have forced him to call Rhodey, first. But JARVIS was dead and the bastard was the one who held secrets from him all those years. JARVIS had _known_.

No. Tony would need to be smart about this and would think at least five steps ahead at all times.

Steve would be defensive, there was no doubting that, but if Tony made it clear to him that the team, their relationship, was priority maybe he would bypass the initial fight response. Maybe this time Steve would listen to reason.

_ “Captain Roger’s floor, Boss,” _ FRIDAY announced calmly, although it felt like a punch to the chest.

Between one moment and the next, Tony was out of the elevator, across the hall and knocking on Cap’s front door without even a pause to check if the man was already in deep sleep. Fortunately, the door opened before the panicked thought had even fully formed in his mind.

Steve wore plaid pyjama bottoms under a soft brown sugar robe, fastened in a tight knot at his waist. He looked comfortable.

His expression went from confused to alert in an instant.

“What’s wrong?” asked Steve, concerned.

Tony ignored the question and brushed past him, full of bravado he didn’t truly feel as he invited himself into the other man’s living area. 

“So!” He began with false cheer, clasping his hands together around his mug. He shone a winning smile at the other man. “You’ve been avoiding me, which I thought - you know - sure, that’s fine, it’s not like I have a right to your company, but then I discovered _ why _ \- why on Earth Captain America has been avoiding little old me and frankly I’m-” Tony swallowed, forcing his tongue against the back of his teeth and pursing his lips. All at once, the hurt he hadn’t let himself process jammed into the back of his throat. Perhaps he should have waited, instead of running in with all guns blazing alongside the caffeine tremors. JARVIS would have told him to wait. He grimaced, self-deprecatingly, and squared his jaw. “Well, I’m a little lost, Steve.”

To his credit, dawning realisation washed over Steve’s befuddled expression after only a moment of instinctive affront. 

“You remember,” Steve said, and it wasn’t a question. 

For some reason, that angered Tony more than he anticipated.

“I never _ forgot,_” he hissed, stalking past Steve again to slam the door shut with enough force to rattle the cabinets. The cool and calm approach immediately went out of the imitation window. He was shaking, he realised, but if he acknowledged it for more than a moment he might break. “I have lived with this the whole time.”

“How-?” Steve took a step towards him and Tony stumbled, body torn between wanting to throw himself towards the man and refusing Steve the honour of being anywhere near his presence, even for a punch in the teeth.

“JARVIS had recordings of that day we went back to the Tower. He saw us apprehending Loki. He saw us going back, taking the Stones. He saw you, returning the Stones. And hours later he saw me, in the workshop, alone. That’s how it originally went, right? You sped off on your one-man road trip and didn’t come back, I assume?” As Steve said nothing, standing seemingly numb from shock, Tony bolstered on and distanced himself. He walked further into the room, away from Steve, to put down his cup of coffee before it spilled. “Except, that’s not how I recall the scene playing out. As a matter-of-fact, I remember you paying me a visit in the wee hours of the morning after the battle. But I guess if I asked you about it a year ago, before we got Thanos, you would have called me nuts.”

“Tony-” Steve began and his tone was tight and placating. He was either trying to calm him or manipulate him and Tony wanted to scream with frustration at either option. The sheer incredulity and _ hurt _ he had been keeping at bay since discovering the truth was suddenly overwhelming and pouring out of him in a tidal wave.

“All that time - more than _ ten years _ \- you didn’t know and I did. You slept with me once then never mentioned it again. But it wasn't him, was it? Past-You, he didn't know. It was you.” Tony turned in time to see Steve’s lips parting in speech. “No - zip it, I’m not done; you don't get to talk until I tell you to.” He picked up the nearest thing to him - a small pocket notebook from the coffee table. “I’ve got the support book, you can talk when you’ve got it." He flushed, but he couldn't let embarrassment stop him: this needed to be fixed or the whole team (the NNSA's, the intergalactic alliance) would fall apart around them. All that they built together. "And hey: quick disclaimer - I've forgiven you, but I'm so fucking-! Fucked up about this that I might not shut up for thirty minutes. Just so _ you _ know where we’re at right now.”

Steve looked away with his brow furrowed and angry, somehow deep in thought at a time like this. Steve looked like he was gearing up for a fight, but something shifted and now he relaxed his stance into a stoic position. He looked back and searched Tony's tumultuous features - calculating, cataloguing - then he met Tony’s furious gaze full-on, not shying away, and a wave of silent understanding seemed to pass between them. The same understanding that had been shared outside the facility when Tony returned to him the vibranium shield. 

Tony needed this and to some extent he expected that Steve needed this, too. And they would communicate like fucking adults until everything was squared away. If they were ever going to move on the air between them had to be cleared. Otherwise how could they ever trust one another again?

"Whatever you need. I'm not going anywhere," Steve agreed, deep and full of promise, and if it wasn't the middle of the night Tony wondered if he might've said _ 'I can do this all day'. _ Steve moved away from the door, stepping further into the room while maintaining a respectful distance. Position engaged.

With some relief, Tony nodded sharply back and felt closer to Steve than ever at that moment. Steve wasn't being difficult. He was giving him the floor - this opportunity to unload the twist in his heart that had been present ever since they defeated Thanos. Perhaps since 2012.

Together, they braced themselves: on opposite sides of an argument once more, but this time with a common goal. Resolution. 

Steve's jaw was tense, his hands clasped around the knot holding his robe together at his waist. It was a tell: he was uncomfortable, but not defensive. It was just a coping strategy and Tony had plenty of experience with those. Tony's hand shook like it was glitching around the notebook he had commandeered. He took a breath.

“How could you be so reckless, first of all. You should count your lucky stars and stripes that everything is still in one piece. We got lucky. I _ told _ you, I told you more than once that messing with time was a stupid idea and you just had to be Captain Dumbass and get your dick wet in the past when there’s a perfectly good _ me _right here!” Tony said in a rush. Horror filled his chest but he roughly pushed past it: shame and fear had no place here as their forged and broke bonds of trust. Admitting that he - today, now - was interested in Steve tested the limits of his self-preservation. He hadn’t meant to reveal that so soon, but he always performed his best when he was working on the fly. Steve looked shocked too and Tony was perversely glad the admission had unsettled them both equally.

His grip relaxed on the book he held slightly as he breathed out a shaky rush of air. He remembered Steve had said something after they slept together, something he had dismissed at the time and recalled weekends later during the strained ennui of board meetings.

_ “We'll be okay,” _ said the Steve that slept with him. The man who had watched him survive the full force of all six Infinity Stones.

_ “We’ll do that together too,” _ said the Steve that had never fully trusted his word.

“I’m angry at you because you didn’t know back then what we had. Maybe it wouldn’t have made a difference if you had known, but you looked at me like a stranger the next time I saw you after New York. You didn’t trust me with Ultron, with Wanda, any of it. You _told me_ we would be okay and Steve let me tell you that is fucking hard to believe when you chose Barnes over me.” He consciously sent a signal to his arm to relax. He stuffed it into a pocket when it didn't. “You tried to- You didn’t tell me that Barnes _ killed _ my parents - and why would you? You had no idea how much that betrayal, from _ you, _ would-... And you want to know the kicker? I thought it was _ my fault_. It wouldn’t be the first time someone saw Tony Stark as good for nothing but a fuck and some tech, but for _ Captain America_ to sleep with me and decide I’m unworthy of his trust? Turns out, hey, everybody was right! Tony Stark really must be a miserable piece of shit." 

He swallowed, throat tight. A wave of unbridled shame washed over Tony; not at the admission that his self-worth had been rocked after Steve refused to trust him, but from his own self-awareness: he was referring to himself in the third person. He couldn’t stop it. It didn’t even work to distance himself from the hurt. He used to do that with Howard, and Obie, too. He didn't want to do that with Steve. He didn't want Steve to see his coping mechanisms, his weaknesses.

"Tony," Steve began, but he waited for permission to continue. He was using the Captain America voice - the one he used to talk to witnesses.

"Not yet," he said, voice wet and painful in his throat. He half-turned away from Steve and held the notebook up to show him, _ Don't talk to me yet._

Blissfully Steve was true to his word and kept quiet, patient.

Back then, before the raid in Sokovia - before they had even been a real team - Tony was convinced that Steve never mentioned their fling because he had felt betrayed. 

Betrayed, because Tony hadn’t had the decency to call him the next day. Or the day after that. Or any day at all until the band formed back together for the Scepter. But with Cap fresh off the ice, Tony had been the one with knowledge of how modern relationships worked. It had been his responsibility. In the past, he might have been a one-night-only kind of guy, but by then Tony had changed. If Steve had read those tabloids he wouldn’t have known any better and might have thought that Tony had used him.

What if Tony had wised up and called him: invited him out, dated him properly? Instead, he’d left Steve in the cold with no contact for months - just like he had after Thanos came to Wakanda. It was no wonder the other man was reluctant to communicate with him. 

It was almost comforting. Howard had been right all along and Tony could deal with that: it _had_ been a dick move and Tony thought it had explained why Captain America was always so hesitant to trust him. 

Instead, Steve back then had had no knowledge that they slept together and still judged Tony to be wanting.

They’d been on unequal footing since almost the beginning. Had Tony unintentionally created a self-fulfilling prophecy with Steve: pushed him and the team to breaking point to prove to himself that he could never be deserving of Captain America's trust?

But Steve _ did _ trust him. He made that abundantly clear during the heist, during the war. Steve had trusted him enough to follow him to the 70s. He trusted him to don the gauntlet and finish the fight. 

In another universe, maybe the mission failed. Stuck in the 70s, would they have found peace with each other without this pain?

_What a nice sentiment, _he thought.

He cleared his throat and smiled up at Steve briefly, reassuring, before he turned his back and wandered the living room, poking and prodding at anything not bolted down.

“I can’t even stay mad at you, because I’d already gotten over it. You didn’t want me back then and I got that, I moved on. You know how I do. But- _ now _ you decide you want me and look for that in the past? It’s been more than ten years… It’s not even been a year for you. Please tell me you understand how fucked up this is. You _ seriously _can't make anything easy, can you?"

Because Bucky had to have been lying to Peter; Steve couldn’t want him as he was _ now_. Not like this. There was so much pain forming a gulf between them, battered and bruised and thick with scars. That was why Steve had fucked him in the past; to experience Tony Stark in his prime. His most generous, his most healthy. To forget all the pain that had come between them. To take a bite out of happiness before it had all been ruined. Steve didn't want him; he wanted the idealised form of a happy Avengers.

Tony sighed and tossed down the book to the coffee table with a tired flick of his fingers, all of the fight leaking from him. He scrunched his toes in the soft rug beneath his feet and made a decision to ignore how surreal the whole situation was. He sat on the couch instead, slumped like a fabric doll with his legs stretched out in front of him. He stared across the room at the electric fire hearth and wondered if Steve hated it. 

After a few moments, Steve joined him.

"I shouldn't have gone off mission when I went back. I didn't realise that it would change our reality and that could have cost us a lot more than it did," he admitted and Tony looked up in surprise. "I don't regret being with you, but if I had the chance I wouldn't do it that way again knowing now what happened. You deserved better by me."

"You're not fighting me on this," Tony observed calmly.

"Tony... I was selfish with you and since I've been back I have acted like a coward. You have a right to be angry, to yell until you can’t anymore," Steve frowned, and Tony knew him well enough now to understand that the anger twisting in his expression was targeted inward. His jaw clenched. "I didn't even think - would you have slept with me if you had known I was from the future? I took advantage of kno-"

"Oh sugar, don't you worry about that. Whatever age I am, whatever age you are, I would always have said yes... Are you kiddin' me?" Tony said, his voice light and strained with exhaustion. He might’ve been going into shock; was everything supposed to be cold and numb? He shook his head to fight off the echo in his ears and looked across at the other man. "At any point in this process, you could've said something. Even if we had never fucked back then, I'm sure the original version of me felt the same way about us as I do. You could have said something to him. Me. But you didn't."

The tense crease between Steve's brows deepened as he hesitantly tilted his head. "What would he have said?"

Tony waved his hand with a dismissive flick of his fingertips and looked away before he spoke. "He'd say that we're fucked up. We've got enough baggage between us to nosedive my jet - and that thing can hold a lot, mind you.” He sniffed and looked to the fireplace, jaw working around the words to come. “There are parts of this that aren’t healthy... But when we work we're amazing, we get each other. I'm not half as good as anything as I am when I'm doing it next to you," Tony shrugged casually, as though it had always been known between them. In all the years since the first Chitauri battle, Tony learned that vulnerability wasn't the enemy. "And that's the truth... You'll always have a chance with me."

His hand was cold and clammy against his thigh where the fingers dug tightly into the flesh beneath his jeans. The skin under his nails was bleached white where it wasn't a dark blue, the cold of his exposed soul battling with his death-grip. 

When Steve touched him, he didn't startle. 

Steve's hand was cold, too. 

"I'm sorry," he said, his expression sincere and with a depth of heartache that must reach his core. He said it as if he meant it. He said it as if he _ understood. _

_ 'You'll always have a chance with me.' _

Tony looked into Steve's eyes, saw love, respect, and a weight lifted.

Tony barely hesitated.

"Already forgiven," he repeated in a murmur. His gaze fell to Steve's lips and as he leaned in Steve moved to meet him, the years of distance between them finally closing. 

They stopped shy, noses brushing against each other as they savoured the quiet of Steve's rooms around them. This moment was precious. Here, not even the sounds of late-night traffic could penetrate. Any trouble waking members of the Mansion were in would have to wait. Tony could feel the warmth of Steve's face against his own and it was no effort at all to follow that feeling; to kiss his friend again for the first time in over ten years.

Kissing Steve was like a balm over a half-healed wound, soothing and kind, without a sting. A gentle press of lips, neither one taking more than was offered, something small and special shared between them. Tony sighed into the kiss as Steve's mouth moved softly against his like he was cherishing the moment. 

Tony tilted his head until their kiss broke and their foreheads touched. He kept his eyes shut, content to be close in the gentle midst in the aftermath of their heightened emotions.

"Where did you get the bike?" He murmured after a pause, blinking his eyes open. From the close distance, he watched Steve do the same.

He looked the same as he had when he visited all those years ago. This had been his Steve all along.

"Bike?"

"You left on your bike, afterwards," explained Tony.

"Oh," Steve chuckled, leaning back a little so Tony could see his eyes. His hand fell to his own thigh from where it had been hovering and Tony immediately wanted Steve's arms wrapped around him. "I took it from him - me - then rode back to the tower. I got it back to the motel before I noticed it had gone."

Tony felt himself laugh, louder than called for, and the joyful noise filled the room as he draped his arm over the back of the sofa. He turned so he could face Steve fully, cheek resting on his fist. _ I missed you. _"You had to break more than just the laws of time-travel to get to me, huh Rogers?"

"Can you blame me?" Steve replied with a little smirk, mouth twisting up on one side, just like it used to. Tony could almost cheer with relief; Steve’s smile was such a sight for sore eyes. His chest bubbled excitedly and he laughed again from sheer joy. 

It was like they shared an impossible secret. Something just for them, together. He leaned in and kissed Steve again. It felt like a celebration.

"Tell me you want more of this?" he murmured and pulled away just enough to acknowledge that Zemo had been right: there was a ring of green around Steve’s pupils. Tony could design a whole arsenal of sports cars based on that colour alone.

"By your leave, yes," Steve replied, his hand reaching out to carefully hold one of Tony's. Warm, now. "I hurt you, it's only right that we do this your way. What you need, I'll follow." 

"Well, if I had known it only took a few kisses to get you to roll over, I might've been tempted earlier," Tony joked, but he squeezed Steve's hand firmly, understanding the considered intention behind his words. Tony turned his attention inward, focusing on his current state of mind. He felt relief after processing some of the frustration that had been haunting him and still did not feel honest resentment towards Steve, but there was something that unsettled him. He pulled back from Steve, tone firm, "I don’t care that you did it, I care that you hid it from me. We can’t keep doing this. Steve, I can’t.”

"Nobody's being kept in the dark," Steve agreed, with all the determined sincerity of Captain America. Tony could almost see Steve's priorities being realigned. No more secrets. They were in this together now. 

Tony spared a moment for disbelief, then chuckled and shook his head. "I'm never going to get tired of you. But you do realise that this will haunt you forever, right? Every time we fight I'll tell you to go back to twenty-twelve and find yourself a hot young side-piece. It's disappointing, really; I won't get to return the favour without messing us up further. Past-You would be great fun."

"Past-Me was a dick," Steve replied. "I won't ever want to go back. I was looking for something I didn't need to go looking for."

"Tell me one day why you did it," Tony requested, admiring Steve's jawline. His concentration was starting to fade as the days without sleep, exceedingly high dose of caffeine, and the crash of high-strung emotions finally caught up to him. He wanted to rest.

"I will," Steve promised, reaching across to squeeze Tony's shoulder. "Do you want some time alone? It's-" he checked the wall. "-gone two in the morning."

Tony shook his head. "I’m not letting you out of my sight. You might do something foolhardy like decide we’re better off apart and, Captain, I didn’t grow all this grey hair for you to run out on me again now." 

"It suits you. But you should rest," Steve firmly said and Tony thought fondly back to the days before the Accords when the good Captain would find him awake in the middle of the night and force him to eat protein bars or send him to bed. Maybe Steve had cared back then and it was him that had been too scared to open his eyes and see it.

Tony sighed and stood, then held out his hand to draw Steve to his feet. He didn't let go as he drew them across the room to Steve's bedroom. It was completely dark, aside from the light spilling across the carpet from the fire in the living room. Had Steve even slept before Tony had come barging in?

No words passed between them as they undressed. Steve's robe found its place on a hook by the door and beneath lay Tony's shoes and jeans. His glasses were dropped to the bedside table. They took turns in the en suite, the sounds of the tap and the flush of the toilet quiet despite the silence in the air. It wasn't an overwhelming quiet, but one of unfamiliar domesticity. They had both fought long and hard to get here and exhaustion was clouding the edges of reality.

Steve was half upright under the sheets waiting for him when Tony returned but settled into a supine position when he was joined in the bed. Tony turned to face him, discernible in the dark by strands of his hair made golden in the light of the fire. He would estimate that five inches separated them.

"Remember Clint's?" Steve asked. His voice was hushed and the baritone rumbled through Tony’s chest.

Tony nodded, his van dyke scratching across the starchy cotton pillowcase. He remembered fighting, the air tense with passive aggression and mistrust. Splinters in his fingers and fear in his chest. _ Trust me - help me stop this fight before it begins. _

They had shared a room after. Steve had been miles away, as still as a statue the whole night, and Tony suspected that neither of them slept. He certainly hadn't.

And here they were: together in the dark again, sharing a bed.

"This isn't Clint's," he said and shuffled closer. His chest pressed against the swell of Steve's arm, his head tucked into the gap above his shoulder. He hoped his hair didn’t tickle Steve’s cheek. "Go to sleep, Cap."

They hadn't fixed everything. And soon they would need to decide on the next course of action to take: how the outcome would affect the team, what it meant for their future together.

For now, Tony shut his eyes and slept.


	5. Chapter 5

Tony sat up to a caliginous room with a whiplash jerk, brow sweat-slick and hand, numb, scrambling at his chest. Obie had taken the reactor. He couldn’t move, but he was drowning, all the same, each intake of breath more shallow than the last. JARVIS was in pieces, _ dead, _ and nobody was there to watch over Tony as he took his final breath.

"Jay-" he gasped, tearing the neckline of his top downwards, ripping fabric with titanium fingers to get at his sternum. It was unnervingly bare, exaggeratedly expanding and falling concave without regard for his preference on the matter. 

He stared at the scarred skin and waited for panic-induced stupidity to melt away; the room was lightless because he no longer had a reactor-cum-nightlight residing in his body. 

Tony stared at the middle distance before the ceiling and thought he really should be used to night-blackened walls by now.

He slumped, kicking off the sheets that had overheated him. They twisted around his ankles, but the cool air on his body was a timely answered prayer. The weight pinning him down moved higher and revealed itself as Steve's broad arm wrapped securely around his waist. He tucked Tony neatly against the side of his pectorals. From this refuge, Tony’s bright eyes searched Steve’s face in the dark, but with barely enough light in the room to consider casting a shadow, Steve seemed impassive with slumber. If not for the way he turned his head to touch his lips to Tony’s temple, Tony might have assumed he imagined Steve’s move to secure his hold in the wake of his early-morning discombobulation.

He watched as Steve’s tongue swiped away the sheen of moisture gracing his upper lip he had traded during the kiss and estimated it to be coming up to five am.

"Alright?" Steve asked, voice rumbling like nature and rounded with sleep. He held Tony steady. His hand rubbed reassuringly against Tony's waist, searing a brand into his flesh. Perhaps it hadn’t only been the densely woven sheets that had stirred-up a heat comparable to Afghanistan.

Steve kept his eyes closed and Tony knew that if he said nothing, the other man would go back to pretending to be asleep. He let his heart fall to 100bpm, then spoke to the ceiling. "I've been trying to get JARVIS back. Sort of. That's how I found out. He was there recording the whole time. I don't know if he even consciously knew... He would have told me."

There was a pause and Tony wondered if Steve was running tactics, considering his words and Tony’s potential responses to all options. Or, just as likely, he was surprised that Tony had honestly answered his question at all. 

"He would have done everything he could have for you," was his murmured response. He shifted, uncomfortable or getting comfortable, Tony couldn’t tell. He would know the difference one day. “If you managed to get those memories back, you'll be able to find the rest of him."

The goal had never been to bring JARVIS back, but Tony couldn't deny that was the hope. Trust Steve to know him so well.

"If I don't?" Tony asked the ceiling, not really expecting Steve to answer. It was wholly strange to have the company of another human in this liminal time of night. Post-nightmare, pre-engineering binge, while the Mansion was quiet but creaked it’s confusion to whoever happened to be awake at such an unsociable hour. 

When he was three years old he understood that if he avoided the eighth plank in and fourth across, his socked feet would not make a noise to alert the nanny of the month. He never understood how Jarvis - the gentleman, not the A.I. - found him in the middle of the night, despite his careful avoidance of the eighth plank in and fourth across. He would allow Tony a biscuit with the little dried fruits and sugar on top but made sure he ate with a napkin and a saucer. 

(Most nights he carried Tony back to bed. He couldn’t when Tony was twenty-one, as he had outgrown Jarvis’ strength, but the man stayed with him until the early hours of the morning when he was ready to collapse with twisted grief regardless of the presence of a bed in the room.)

"You've got us,” Steve said slowly, as though Tony was not aware that his childhood home was filled to the brim with life. _ Me, _ Steve didn’t say _ (you’ve got me),_ and Tony wondered if he was afraid of caging him. His arm around Tony’s waist didn’t feel like a restraint. “I'm sorry I ever made you feel that you didn't."

"I-" his voice caught, so quiet that he barely heard himself speak. He didn't know if he could say it (that which had been haunting him for months- years: _ come back to me, I love you) _ not even in the dark to the ceiling with Steve holding him - truly holding him, not fighting to hold him back. 

It was still so raw. Everything that had passed between them had coalesced to this moment in time. The past had been written and rewritten to form this instant, but the future was their own to choose together. He turned in Steve's embrace and kissed him - not because he had always wanted to, but to share the here and now.

Steve broke the kiss, just enough to respond with a hushed _ ‘Tony’,_ then drew him in once more with a hand under the small of his back. The worth of Tony’s name had never meant anything in comparison to the weight of meaning Steve had inflected into those two syllables. _ Come back to me, I love you. _

Tony moved carefully until he was braced over the top of Steve, resting his forearms on either side of Steve's head with a rustle against the pillow below. He kissed Steve deeply, tilting his head, and took the time to experience the man he had kissed so many years ago.

Back then he had been Captain America to Tony; the guy fresh out the ice, clearly too young and traumatised to be thrust into another war so soon, but with enough arrogance to prove his place in the brave new world. The legend, the hero. The man Howard wasted his fatherhood to find. 

Here and now, it was all Steve Rogers. The man carefully mapping out Tony's back, taking a firm hold when he found what he wanted, and growing hotter beneath him by the minute. Tony relaxed further into his body. He settled his weight against Steve's stomach timidly as if he were afraid he might chance a burn upon contact. He trailed his mouth along the line of Steve’s jaw, leaving his lips wet and parted for breath along the way. 

Steve's hands tightened at his hips when Tony found himself pressing his tongue to flush skin. He couldn’t help the breath of pleasure he whispered into Steve’s throat.

"Are you-?" Steve spoke hesitantly.

Tony filled in the gap, “-sure?” 

“Yes.” 

"Yes. Don't stop,” Tony murmured and he pressed his nose into the shorter hairs behind Steve’s ear, along his hairline as he spoke. He knew that - given the opportunity - Steve would use every moment to atone for his past mistakes (to wait for a signal, despite how much he would rather be jumping into the fire) but Tony didn’t want to think about the past anymore. He didn’t want Steve acting carefully around him. He wanted the man - irresponsible time-travel decisions and all. He wanted the future.

Steve’s fingers put uncertain pressure on the skin at his waist again, but this time it felt like fidgeting and Tony couldn’t have that. 

"Let us have this, Rogers. We can debate the moral conscience tomorrow."

“Tomorrow?”

“Yes.”

“And then?”

“Presumably a rather large breakfast,” Tony replied wryly and with a playful patter of fingers on Steve’s chest. He kissed Steve’s lips and felt him let out the breath he had been holding with a huff of laughter and his will to argue abated. 

"Breakfast would be nice.”

"Oh, yeah? I can read you like a book," Tony drawled, quirking his brows - hoping the super-soldier could appreciate the action in the dark - before dropping his head to mouth at Steve's throat again. Struck by curiosity, he bit down and sucked a mark there. A shaken inhalation was Tony’s reward, shortly followed by a hand that cupped one buttock and hefted him closer. Tony smiled and continued until - on a normal person - the bruise would be large enough to rival the after-effects of a solid punch delivered by his new right hand. He licked over the mark he couldn’t catch enough light to see.

“That won’t stay,” said Steve, a touch breathless.

“That’s not the point,” Tony replied, although one day he would enjoy watching the bruises form and fade as they held onto each other.

“You’re having fun,” he mused, ducking his head slightly so he could brush the tip of his nose against Tony’s. The action brought them closer together again. Eye to eye, barely visible.

“Aren’t you?”

A pause. A clenched jaw, unclenching. “I feel like I’m waiting for the other boot to drop. I thought about this every day since I got back - what I should have said to you. And now… It’s hard to let go of caution.”

And boy, did Tony get that. Ever since the New York invasion he had waited for the next encounter, the next fight. He had clawed and fought to protect his world and when it was finally through, he didn’t feel much like celebrating. 

He looked at Steve and didn’t feel distance - didn’t feel anger. He no longer felt like they were on two planes of existence, moments away from converging and crashing in a spectacular fall of worlds. They were aligned now. This felt like beginnings.

And reckless beginnings always suited Tony rather well.

“We’ve both done things to each other we aren’t proud of. Let go, just be here now. I’m not asking for anything more.”

Steve was quiet, as though he was trying to decide whether he had a problem with that. 

“And breakfast?”

“If you like.” 

“Yes.”

“Then yes, that, too.” Tony nodded, as simple as that.

Steve shook his head, but said, “alright,” like he trusted Tony’s word, so he pulled Steve into a kiss so thorough that any further serious thoughts wouldn’t stand a chance to come between them for the rest of the night.

“Forget everything else,” Tony murmured, running his palms down Steve’s chest over the soft cotton sleepwear he wore. He shuffled back until he was straddling Steve’s thighs and found himself at the perfect vantage point to slip his fingertips underneath the hemline of the plain cotton top. He was glad that he couldn’t see Steve watching him, although he knew the dark was no match to the other’s heightened senses. There would be plenty of time for him to look - for greed and lust and possession - but for right now, Tony just wanted to hold and be held. He said as much in a murmur against soft skin, “just... Hold me, Steve.”

“Alright,” was Steve’s immediate reply and, just like that, warm hands began to explore the unclothed cooling skin above Tony’s knees. He stroked the flat of his palms over the lengths of Tony’s thighs, sparking heat between them like a match along a striking paper.

“I want you,” Tony said - because they weren’t keeping secrets now. He bowed his head while his hands pushed at Steve’s top, lowering himself so he could run his lips and tongue on a path from stomach to clavicle. As he went, Steve’s hands grew bolder; sneaking glances under the underwear he had worn to bed, trailing his thumbs over the sensitive skin of Tony’s inner thighs.

_ “Yes.” _

Steve had to stop touching as Tony drew the top up his chest and over his shoulders. He tossed the fabric over his own shoulder before grabbing onto Steve’s, steadying himself with a shaky exhale. Steve’s hands found his waist and their lips met once more, coaxing and exploring, succumbing to each other in a way they hadn’t taken the time to do during their past union.

“For a long time,” Tony clarified because he would be damned if - after all that - they stumbled into a misunderstanding and found themselves worlds apart in the light of day.

_ “Yes,” _ Steve agreed eagerly, his hands moving to divest Tony of the torn top he wore. He touched everywhere, seemingly without a plan, and drew Tony into a passionate kiss that had him melting into the cradle of Steve’s hips. 

Pressed so close together, he could feel the lump of Steve’s growing erection through both layers of cotton between them. He couldn’t remember how it tasted, how it felt in his mouth, but he had thought of it often. Less so in the past few years, but it was a well-worn memory path. It had always been a shame that he had only one memory of it.

Tony pushed his hips down into Steve’s boldly, rolling his thigh up against his balls, and felt satisfaction when he heard a shocked grunt escape Steve’s throat. It was the thought of his cock against Steve’s - so big it should have been intimidating, but back then it seemed like a challenge - without fabric separating them, slick and naked, without secrets or lies... _ that _ was what got Tony from twitching to hard.

They kissed and undulated against one another, letting a natural rhythm flow as their bodies met and reignited together, closer with every touch. They were learning and relearning, finding each other again in this unique moment in time. Tony didn’t think about how they could have had this since that first time, nor did he think to the future. He let himself be stripped, eager to get his hands back on Steve and help him get naked, too.

He didn’t keep track of where their clothes had fallen; he wasn’t planning on needing them for at least another few hours.

In the second it took for them to realign, a seed of doubt lodged itself on the tip of Tony’s tongue. The shell caught in his teeth uncomfortably and he was ridding himself of the sensation before he even realised he had opened his mouth, “I haven’t-, not since-... with the arm. You know. It doesn’t matter; it’s all the same really. It is, of course, amazing,-”

Tony’s rigid verbal fumblings were cut off as Steve looped their fingers together. With both hands, Steve held on tightly to him, then drew them to rest either side of his head alongside the pillow. Steve wasn’t shying away from the augmented arm; he trusted it, trusted Tony, and opened himself up by adopting a submissive position beneath him. Even Steve’s prick seemed to be on board with the new circumstance, pressing hot and wet against Tony’s inner thigh. It forced Tony to look into the shine of Steve’s eyes in the dark as he spoke, “Your prosthetic is not a turn off for me, Tony. Even if it wasn’t earned during a selfless act, or if you decided to not use it at all, I wouldn’t be any less attracted to you. And if there are a few technical missteps, we’ll deal with them. Is that clear?”

Tony’s insecurity wasn’t focused entirely on the arm. Steve had technically slept with him mere months ago, but the Tony he had slept with was young, not yet embittered - one might argue that just after the battle in New York, Tony was his best self. It wouldn’t be unexpected if Steve kept the thought of that Tony in his mind and found this one wanting. But the tone Steve used allowed no room for doubt and, despite his inclination to argue, Tony could only feel relief and desire. He believed him.

“Fuck, yeah, crystal,” Tony breathed, wetting his lips. He untangled his fingers from Steve’s and used one to support his weight while the other pressed firmly to the expanse of the chest under him, tracing breaths. 

Newly freed, Steve cradled the back of Tony’s head with one hand, making the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end. He kissed up the side of Tony’s throat and greedily ran his second hand along the naked skin at Tony’s rib cage.

“Your cologne…” Steve murmured to himself, breathing in deeply. “I’ve not stopped thinking about you, about that day. Whenever I saw you I thought of us. I never thought I’d have anything like this with you again.”

“You’ve got me,” Tony promised, pressing himself unabashedly against the lethal swathes of Steve’s body. He kissed him passionately, deeply, so that Steve would never be able to doubt his sincerity. “Whenever, wherever.”

Steve pulled back a moment and Tony was afraid he had made a misstep. He tried to keep his expression neutral, unsure how much of him that Steve could see in the dark between them. Something must have been right, as Steve was kissing him again and gripping him tightly. He rolled them, until Tony was comfortably pushed into the mattress and pillows, and lined their crotches to one another.

“Fuck,” Tony groaned, somehow surprised by how sweet the sensation of Steve’s naked skin on his felt. He pushed his hips into Steve’s, feeling the drag of heat curl loosely in his stomach and send fire through his veins. A large hand moved to the back of his neck as their mouths and bodies met as one, holding him in place, as though Steve were afraid he would vanish from beneath him. The thought tightened the sharp heat in Tony’s belly and he keened, gasping against Steve’s mouth. “Oh, yeah. That’s good, Rogers, yes.”

Steve held onto him desperately like he was weak to the force of his own desire. He rutted roughly, without finesse, and it had been so long for Tony - so long since sex was just bodies swept up in a cataclysmic need to be close and feel good. They needed this. They both did.

“Fuck,” he said breathlessly at the realisation. He pawed at Steve’s chest, clinging onto him just as desperately. “Fuck. Yeah, yes, more.”

Steve’s thrusts picked up a fiercer, more controlled edge, and Tony deliriously wondered if the man was aware he liked to take orders in the bedroom. The thought didn’t last for long; every roll of their hips dragged the lengths of their pricks together, friction sparking a distracting heat that made Tony arch and twist.

It was gratifying to be together like this again, to feel the basic press of their overheated bodies together. Finally together, equal as they should be.

Steve's moans quickly grew more rugged, deeper and pleading as their flesh stroked mutual pleasure against one another. It was one of the most primal sexual things Tony had ever had the pleasure to be a part of.

“Yeah, come on. I want your come all over my dick, I want to be covered in it,” he panted, too aroused to be sure of what he was saying. He might’ve felt shame, but he knew Steve got off on his talking before and hoped he would enjoy it equally in the present. “Just like last time, that’s it.”

Then, he had felt owned - possessed - but not in a way that was caging. It was nothing like Obie or Ten Rings. Even now, as Steve’s spunk covered his cock and wayward pubic hair, and he felt _ absolution._

_"Ah, ah, _yes. Fuck."

Like their first time, Steve’s cock remained just as hard as it had been moments before and that erotic thought hit Tony straight in the gut, a slice of a hot blade all the way down to his erection and burning him to his core. He would be able to get so much pleasure from Steve; the guy that could go and go again. Tony had always found the most erotic part of sex the knowledge acquisition and implementation. With Steve, he could learn and utilise and repeat time and time again.

“You’re still so hot,” he said with a laugh and if his voice caught on emotion Steve didn’t mention it.

Sex seemed to sap the physical energy from Steve more than a battle ever had. He was sweaty, hot to the touch - presumably flushed in ruddy pink - and moaned into Tony’s mouth as if he were in pain. The hand he wasn’t resting his weight on cupped Tony’s cheek, his thumb tracing his lips where they met before sneaking entrance. Tony sucked on the square digit, remembering the weight of Steve’s erection on his tongue, and he threw his head back with a loud moan. The tell-tale warm ache behind his balls warned him that he would last only a few more passes of Steve’s cock-head brushing against the sensitive part of his frenulum. 

With renewed urgency, he threaded his fingers into Steve’s hair - longer than the cropped style he had worn in 2012 - and held him close. He wouldn’t let go, he would never let go again. Even if they never fucked again, he would never lose Steve from his life. It would never be like before; the pain of betrayal and frustrated shouting-matches from opposite sides. Nor the lingering silences, warmth absent and familiarity kept at bay.

“Trust me, trust this,” he begged, too honest and raw. He felt exposed, but that in itself was erotic because he was confident he knew what Steve was going to say back.

“I do, fuck, Tony. You’ve got it,” was Steve’s affirmation he had been waiting for and with a final roll of their hips - clashing together with a brutal force that would bruise at least one of them, if not both - Tony was arching inwards and gasping out his orgasm into the heated patch of Steve's throat. Waves of pleasure throbbed at his dick, the slide between them becoming slicker and messy; a combination of their need for one another.

“Fuck,” Steve cursed, his thrusts only increasing in tempo. He pressed Tony into the bed, burrowing his nose just above his collarbones.

“Oh, oh, fuck-” Tony moaned, shuddering again with every punch and drag against his cock. Every touch was like the ambient warmth of a battery strapped to his chest, keeping him alive in the coldest of desert nights. They were coming out of the cold, now, making way for great strides and innovation.

“Please, please,” Steve whispered, shaking so violently that Tony was almost worried he would crumble apart like pieces of sandstone between cruel centuries.

“Yeah, yes: take what you need, big guy,” he encouraged, holding the other man’s hair tighter as he spoke. He wanted to anchor him, let him bask in the liberation and utter assurance of feeling owned, loved.

With that permission, Steve shuddered against him again, dragging the length of his cock against the base of Tony’s and come poured out of his tip. His grip didn’t soften and his gasps descended to a shuddering inhale and low, broken noises within the realm of sobs. Tony’s chest ached at the sound, but it was good. It felt like love as he tangled both sets of fingers more securely into Steve’s hair, just over the nape of his neck, and pull him into a bruising kiss. He held fast, kissing for all he was worth and rolling his body to meet each inexorable thrust until Steve came a third time, falling to his elbow, and spreading a pooling mess all over Tony’s belly.

_ Amazing,_ Tony thought, reaching out with both palms to touch flushed cheekbones. He felt adoration swell in his chest as he marvelled at the evidence of Steve wanting him, so much so that Steve had lost all pretences and descended into pure gut feeling without restriction. Steve wasn't perfect (he was stubborn, reckless, and was quick to anger) but he didn't have to be perfect. Tony wanted it all, unrestrained and unpredictable.

When he stopped grinding, Steve’s breaths were still sharp; as though he was in the midst of a panic. He was shaking above Tony so much that he wondered if Steve was too scared to move lest he crumbled apart. Tony kept kissing him, coaxing them both through the unusual and surreal torrent of emotions that had passed between them. He deepened the kiss and slowed the pace, easing his fingers through Steve’s damp hair to rub against the back of his neck in soothing lines that ebbed to and fro along its length.

When the tremors subsided to trembles and the occasional stubborn shudder, Tony hooked his ankle around Steve’s and let gravity coax him to fall by his side on the mattress. They faced each other and sweet kisses turned to shared breaths, brows resting against one another.

“That was-” Steve murmured with an indecipherable tone. Tony was beginning to realise that the other man had the habit of leaving behind his vocabulary in the intimacy of the bedroom. It was probably quite telling of the super-soldier’s psyche, but now wasn’t the time to analyse.

“Uh-huh,” he replied, genuinely speechless for once. He reached out blindly for Steve’s cheek and brushed away the longer wet hairs clinging to his forehead. He kissed him, slow and full of promise, the unspoken words he was too afraid to say aloud.

Steve shifted away briefly, mere millimetres, but returned a moment later armed with a piece of fabric (Tony did not have enough faculties to hazard a guess as to whether it was his abandoned t-shirt or a stray abused pillowcase) which he used to wipe at Tony’s stomach and thighs with care. His movements were slow, but out of reverence or exhaustion, Tony couldn’t tell. 

When the cloth was discarded over the edge of the bed Tony gathered him close, mirroring the way Steve had held him after he woke from his night-terror. He ran metal fingers along the man’s spine with the barest of touches and found himself grateful that his father had worked to make the body beneath his hand strong. Even with delicate health, Tony would want him, but he was so glad he wouldn’t have to know so keenly the worry of a Steve Rogers with brittle bones and a rattling respiratory system.

Warm fingers grazed Tony’s cheek in tender touch - drawing him back to the present - before slowly falling to the small space between their chests. A deep exhale followed that touch and Tony felt it as, from one instant to the next, Steve finally fell into true sleep.

He smiled softly and sighed a breath of relief. With a final kiss - gentle and placed perfectly - Tony followed Steve into a heavy slumber.

* * *

“Ugh. Fuck. Sonofa-”

Tony waved a palm over the screen of his StarkPad, effectively hiding the program he had running that tracked FRIDAY’s progress with JARVIS. He settled the tablet onto his lap and directed his attention to the cursing bundle of beef tucked beside his hips where he sat against the headboard.

“I actually thought you would wake up _ so _much faster than this,” he snorted - a high pitched rush of noise - and he grinned down at the faint yellow mark that spoke of a healing love-bite marring Steve’s otherwise flawless throat.

“Yeah, well. You try waking up on a dime after three great orgasms,” Steve grumbled into the pillow, digging his face into the cushiony fabric as if he could find an alternate-reality of pleasant sleep in its depths. Perhaps he thought Tony couldn’t hear him all the way inside that pillow. “It’s different if there’s a mission.”

“Oh, so we _ are _ talking about it, good to know. And _ great,_ huh? Flattery will get you everywhere,” Tony mused with a teasing lilt to his voice. He was freshly showered and simultaneously using both his phone and Steve’s abandoned StarkPad he had found in the living room. He leaned down to kiss Steve and suddenly everything was normal; as if they had been friends forever and fucking just as long. “Hello.”

Steve smiled, his eyes warm and glazed still from sleep, not fully open. He rolled over and tucked his hand up under his head, exposing the bulge of his bicep and the gorgeous lines of muscles from his chest to his waist. His nipple was a pretty pink in the light of day, Tony noted. “Hi there. Have you been up long?”

“No,” Tony lied and made it clear he was dishonest by handing Steve a coffee; one-shot, four-parts milk, one-part cream, all sugar. It was ridiculously unnecessary but spoke of how well Steve had adjusted to the 21st century’s palate. And it wasn’t like Steve drank coffee for the caffeine, in any case. “I was fucking around, prepping for my meeting with Fury, then I found out that dear Pete made an Instagram account for Barnes last night. I’m not entirely sure Barnes knows; it appears to be mainly pictures of a drunk and disorderly Barton, anyhow. Look-”

He turned his StarkPad to show Steve a particularly fetching picture of Clint balancing on the tip of one finger. Clint threw up a peace sign with his other hand and his flushed face was beaming at the camera until Tony swiped to the next picture, where a rather more blurry Clint was in the middle of falling to the floor with an impressively alarmed expression. Off to the side and completely in focus, Bucky held the back of his fist in front of his face as he laughed, almost bent double. Tony had only ever seen him laugh in old newsreels at the Smithsonian.

“Huh,” Steve said as though there was more to the picture than three idiots with too much internet access and not enough brain cells.

“Parker is getting good at candids,” Tony agreed, not meaning to gloat but feeling pride all the same. Steve sipped his drink, suspiciously quiet for a moment.

Tony raised a brow curiously.

“Will he be alright with this?”

“He couldn’t hold a grudge to save his life,” Tony dismissed with a wave of his hand. “He’s a great kid; all heart and half as stubborn as you... I meant what I said: I won’t have you getting the ridiculous idea in your head that we’re better off apart, so don’t go looking for reasons.” He added with a sense of superiority he did not feel. He pushed his glasses higher up the bridge of his nose and tapped at his tablet mindlessly.

Steve’s hand touched the metal of his wrist. The sensors told him it was warm in temperature and affection. “I’m not goin’ anywhere, not if you don’t want me to,” he said and his mouth tasted like sweet coffee when they kissed.

Tony indulged within the candied moment for some time before they both pulled themselves away.

“What do we tell the others?” Steve asked, pushing himself into a sitting position at the edge of the bed.

Tony smiled and let his eyes wander between the freckles that adorned Steve’s back. They looked like splatters of paint, leftover from an enthusiastic sunset artist. He had smiled because he knew Steve would ask and had spent some time (in-between scrolling Instagram, annoying Fury, and communicating with FRIDAY) considering their options.

“It’s only been a day,” he pointed out because he was curious to see Steve’s reaction. He wanted Steve to consider it: they’ve only just started spending time in each other’s company for longer than five minutes without the excuse of a third party present.

“It has,” he said neutrally and Tony held in a smile. He pushed his glasses up his nose as Steve leaned back on one hand to make eye contact with him. “After long, they might get worried or suspicious if we continue to avoid each other.”

“True. You want to tell them,” he observed. Of course Steve wanted that. After all, they’d promised not to leave each other in the dark again - a similar courtesy should extend to their teammates.

“Yes. I want you to decide when,” Steve replied firmly and Tony really was enjoying this whole being-on-the-same-side thing.

He let out a breath, _ no time like the present, _ and smiled up at Steve.

“Rogers,” he said affectionately. Here they were: making a semi-functional decision together.

“Stark,” Steve echoed, fond and mocking him good-naturedly. He stood with a stretch, looking far more awake than he had half an hour ago. He ran a hand through his hair with a lopsided grin. “I’ll shower then we can get breakfast together?” He finished the question with a hopeful lilt to his voice, giving Tony the option to have the final say.

“I wouldn't miss it, Captain,” Tony acknowledged with a nod and watched Steve retreat into the en suite. His eyes trailed the length of Steve’s back, the narrow slip of his waist, and the impossibly thick muscle of his behind and legs. 

Tony bit the knuckle of his thumb, silently groaning to himself. Fury’s meeting better be swift. If not, Tony vowed to jump out of the window and sweep Roger’s off his feet by dusk.

He almost followed Steve into the bathroom, but chose to be responsible and instead gathered up the soiled bedsheets. He dumped them in the laundry chute, then opened the curtains and picked the pillows up off the floor. Tony touched the bedframe with a contemplative hand, pausing for a few moments to absorb just how different the day was compared to just twenty-four hours before.

He checked his phone:

_ *Initialising… 21%... 13 hrs 28 mins 54 seconds remaining... _

“FRI, be a doll, make a note.”

_ “Yes, boss.” _

“Remind me to tell Steve about Jarvis. I think he’ll like that sort of thing,” he said, shoving his phone into his pocket. He pictured showing Steve photographs of himself as a child in Jarvis’ arms, telling him stories about the way the man fussed with his ties whenever he had a Stark Industries meeting. Not only would Tony be able to share a personal side of himself nobody else but Rhodey knew of, he could honour the memory of Jarvis by sharing the light he brought in life. 

And he rather thought Jarvis would have liked that idea, too.

* * *

When they finally made their way into the kitchen, the majority of the gang was there and in reasonably good spirits. Steve entered ahead of him and found his seat at the table. He lounged with his arm across the back of the chair before greeting everyone with a _ ‘good morning’. _

Tony couldn’t help but hide a smirk: apparently, Steve after a night of _ great _ sex was the type to lounge.

Clint, looking rather hung-over with his feet up on the table, looked between them with a frown before almost toppling from his seat. He seemed to immediately catch on to the change in atmosphere between the two of them. “Oh shit. Oh _ shit.” _

Tony snorted and wandered over to Parker’s place, giving a show of patting him on the shoulder proudly so he could reach around to steal berries from his bowl. “Excuse me-”

“If you’re going to vomit please don’t do it here,” Sam grumbled to Barton, stabbing at his plate as he scrolled through his phone in his other hand.

“They’re fucking - you’re fucking, right? You finally-” Clint said quickly, the bedraggled state of his hair and dark under-eye circles causing him to look a lot like a mad scientist. His eyes darted to Peter, before deciding any hopes of appearing polite in his company were hopeless. _ “Fucked?” _

Lang gasped, growing to full size. And, frankly, just when the _ hell_ had he gotten in?

“Barton…” Bucky murmured, awkwardly looking between Tony and Steve with a grimace.

“Does that mean I actually won the bet? I had the last date in twenty-sixteen, so I’m closest,” Clint grinned smugly at the rest of them, looking a lot brighter with his arms crossed over his chest. “I _ am_ expecting interest.”

“Technically we had a moment after the New York fight, too,” Tony added casually, mock-indifferent. He walked around the kid to stand behind Steve, cocking his hip against the backrest of Steve’s chair while he ate his pilfered berries.

“Ha, I claimed that year! That means I won!” Thor laughed. His fist met with the table victoriously and everybody concealed a wince.

“Wait, wait, no! That depends - was it _ during_ twenty-twelve, or the Time Heist?”

“Like that makes a difference.”

“He’s got a point-”

“Thank you!”

“Not you, idiot-”

“You just had to stir the pot,” Steve murmured, rolling his eyes to look up at Tony, but he laughed when Tony winked at him.

He opened his mouth to reply when a cacophonic scream from above blared throughout the kitchen, stealing any thought he had from his tongue.

The smile faded from Tony’s face and the team as a collective halted their arguing to focus on the centre of the table where a large projection reading ** _‘!AVENGERS ALERT!’_ ** hung for all to see.

“Tony Stark, receiving,” Tony said and the warning screen changed to footage of Maria Hill in tactical gear.

“Stark, we have reports of at least five forty-foot tall geese causing chaos at Battery Park. There have been sightings of another in the harbour, but no confirmed images of yet. There have been casualties. Send a team: pacify and damage control,” said Hill, before promptly signing off.

“Sorry, did she say giant geese?” Sam asked the floating image. He looked around the table at the others, bemused. “Just want to make sure my hearin’ is right.”

Bucky frowned, arms crossed. “Where the hell did they come from?” 

“Uh, I don’t want to- But, has anybody seen Loki?” Bruce asked, scratching a large green thumb over his temple with an anxious expression across his features.

Everyone turned to Thor, whose disposition quickly transitioned from eager-for-battle to aghast-and-betrayed.

“Brother!” Thor roared, his tumultuous voice rattling the cutlery on the kitchen table. He held out a hand and in an instant Stormbreaker was in his grip. He stormed towards the South-bound window, looking out to the pastel blue sky beyond.

“FRI-” Tony began to warn.

_ “Yep,” _ she said simply and opened up the window with plenty of time for Thor to twirl himself out into the city air and towards the waterfowl commotion.

“Well, what are you waiting for? If you’ve had breakfast suit up, if not: get a protein bar for the trip because you’re coming anyway; we need all the eyes we can get,” Steve barked, resulting in a swift emptying of the kitchen as a few members followed Thor’s path out of the window while the rest took the usual path to the armoury and flight deck above the Mansion. He stood and Tony stepped out of the way to clear a path.

“Ready, beloved?” Tony teased, a smirk tugging at his cheek. He had intended the name to be a joke - to get Steve to blush in front of the team - but they weren’t paying attention and Tony rather liked the feel of it leaving his lips.

“I’ll be back for you later,” Steve warned playfully. He lingered, clearly debating with himself before he put both hands to Tony’s jaw and drew him into a kiss that stole time neither of them could afford to waste. “Get to the ship and for the love of God don’t let them send any aircraft in or the geese might get ideas. You stay cloaked. We’ll go with formation J, but that could change so eyes up.”

“Captain,” Tony nodded, because they really did not have the time, and parted ways with the team heading to the roof. He sprinted to the hidden bunker which contained his very own intel ship, inspired by the Helicarrier - but much, _ much _ sexier. It allowed him to be close enough to direct the team, gather data, and act as evac or drop extra ammunition when necessary. He was the eyes in the sky: Iron Man even without wearing the suit.

As he watched the team take their positions, he flicked the comms links on and followed their progress. The carrier took flight over Manhattan, invisible to the naked eye so he could stealth his way past Washington Square Park and over Soho. He sent out two drones to gather intelligence, pilot fish to get in closer to the action. 

One rambunctious goose - and holy hell, that thing was _ big _ \- was already in the throes of dance with Thor ahead of the surveillance ship, lightning streaking past the periphery of Tony’s vision. In the distance, a bright golden glow was streaking steadily closer: Captain Marvel, making an entrance. 

Tony turned his eyes to the crew jettisoning themselves from the ship up ahead, the drones following their safe landing into a goose infested clearing.

“Captain, I have eyes on you and the flock.”

_ “Keep there, Iron Man. They seem to be doing something to the localized gravity in the area. The water is not happy.” _

“On it,” Tony replied, focusing the drones on to measurement and intel gathering. The pulses and waves of the water seemed to be randomized, but soon a pattern would emerge. _ Data, data. _If they were conjured by Loki, these geese may be far more dangerous than their excessive height would suggest. They had only had the chaos god for a day and already he was already screwing around. “Make sure Spider-Man stays in this dimension.”

_ “Hey!” _

Steve looked up and gave the nearest Avengers surveillance drone a jaunty salute, a smile across his lips and behind his cowl, the outer corners of his eyes crinkled warmly,_ “Yessir.” _

Tony sent signals out to the team and then he clicked off his microphone.

“I love you,” he said out loud to the screen, without anybody but the A.I. to overhear him.

The dull sounds of impact to concrete, a flush of flapping wings, whirring mechanics and the occasional deafening _ ‘hjönk!’ _ filled the silence that answered him.

He would let Steve know later. Perhaps while washing feathers from his hair, or even over a cup of coffee the next morning. Something simple and domestic for the first time, to not overshine the sentimentality. After would come time for getaway trips to distant islands, gifts and extravagant meals alike. 

_ Oh yes, _ Tony thought as he sat up, clicked back on his communications with a rush of noise, and watched Steve’s star-spangled ass among the team of Avengers, old and new:

_ I love you. _


End file.
